


A Messed Up Place

by a_splash_of_stucky



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Birth, Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson Friendship, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Character Death, Cheating, Cunilingus, Death, Drunk Sex, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, For the sake of a mission, Friends With Benefits, Giving Birth, Heavy Angst, Labour, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Mildly Dubious Consent, Missions Gone Wrong, Or Is he?, Oral Sex, Oral Sex - Female Receiving, Oral Sex - Male Receiving, Pining Bucky Barnes, Pregnancy, Proposals, Protected Sex, Reader-Insert, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers is clueless, Unplanned Pregnancy, Vaginal Sex, Violence, Wakes & Funerals, Weddings, Who's The Daddy?, blowjob, hookup, pussy eating, questionable parenthood, safe sex, severe regrets, thigh riding, unprotected sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-01-16 10:02:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 17
Words: 85,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12340485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_splash_of_stucky/pseuds/a_splash_of_stucky
Summary: Bucky was never supposed to develop feelings for you. This was supposed to be a no-strings-attached arrangement. How can he possibly get on with his life when you’re not by his side?OrA fic in which the relationship between you and Bucky goes from bad, to worse, to downright confounding.





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this](https://hellomissmabel.tumblr.com/post/166186294761/hellomissmabels-2k-birthday-celebration/) writing challenge. My prompt was 'Lacanian love'.
> 
> Tags will be updated as the series progresses. In terms of archive warnings, there is most definitely _going_ to be death of a character at some point. The rape/non-con warning is me erring on the side of caution - really, it's a dub-con scene, but I don't want to upset anyone by accident.
> 
> If you know me well enough, you know that I take great pleasure in making my readers cry (not really). I love me some good ol’ angst. This is a train bound straight for the land of the broken-hearted. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.
> 
> My schedule is crazy hectic at the moment, so updates for this series will not be as regular as my series have been in the past, and each chapter is probably going to be relatively short, by my standards. I’ll try not to leave too big of a gap between each chapter, but no promises. Hopefully you understand.
> 
> Lastly, this series is going to be written largely from Bucky’s POV, just because I felt like something new. Still gonna be reader-insert, just trying out new techniques. Do let me know what you think.

People say that your heart skips a beat whenever they touch your skin.

People say that your breathing hitches whenever they cast a smile in your direction.

People say that your stomach does frenzied cartwheels and jittery somersaults whenever you hear their laughter.

People say that it’s no longer gravity keeping your feet on the ground, no longer oxygen that fills your lungs. What was right and wrong becomes irrelevant. What you want and desire becomes secondary to what  _they_  want and desire. Your hopes and dreams, plans for the future, your entire  _life_  pivots on an axis, realigning itself around the person that owns your heart. They are the sun, and you’re simply the planets orbiting their brightness.

In that sense, Bucky has to admit, they’re right — whoever ‘they’ are.

But those same people also say that once you set eyes on them, everything falls into place.

Love is not that simple.

And therein lies the problem. Not in the concept of ‘love’, per se — because everyone knows that love is a mystery that no mere mortal could ever hope to understand — but in the fact that Bucky is  _in love,_ where he shouldn’t be.

The thought has been hovering in the eerily quiet corners of his mind for the longest time, but only recently has he decided to bring it front and centre, in order to examine it properly. And, as Bucky’s come to realise, the more he analyses the feelings he has towards you, the more he sees how royally fucked he really is.

Bucky loves you. More than he has ever loved anyone else.

It’s the kind of love that is both awe-inspiring and fear-inducing at the same time, in a rather confusing cocktail of polarised emotions. It’s the kind of love that makes him question his every action and thought, the kind of love that he’ll never be able to walk away from, no matter how many times he tells himself to leave. Your pull is irresistible, drawing him in everyday — your smile, your laugh, your persona, your entire  _being_  an addictive drug that he keeps coming back for.

Bucky can’t remember if he’s ever felt something like this before. He thinks not. He thinks that something this profound would have been able to withstand the tortures and trials that HYDRA put him through.

Don’t think about that now, Barnes.

He doesn’t know how he let things get this far. A single snowflake has snowballed into something far bigger and more terrifying than Bucky could have ever imagined. The two of you have an  _agreement_ , for goodness sake — this was supposed to be a casual thing. Emotions were never supposed to get in the way.

Bucky wants you, desperately. But if he’s honest with himself, he knows that he doesn’t deserve you. You are everything that is pure and good and gentle in this world. There is no reason for an angel like you to settle for a monster like him. Bucky knows this, which is why he still hasn’t managed to bring himself to profess his love for you. His fear of rejection holds him back. You could never want him the way he yearns to love you.

Whatever the case, Bucky knows that he needs to get his act together. This limbo phase is unhealthy, both for him and for you. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll end things with you before his emotions grow any bigger than the monstrous size they are currently. It’s what’s best for you in the long term, and that’s all he wants — the best for you.

If the price of your happiness is his sanity, then that is what Bucky will willingly pay.


	2. ONE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How it all started out.

Love has a lot of cliches.

In fact, ‘a lot’ might even be an understatement. ‘A lot’ is a gross underestimate of the number of cheesy one-liners, overused phrases and endless passages made up of empty promises and meaningless words that couples in love throw around haphazardly. The thing is, there has to be some element of truth behind them. These cliches must have come about for a reason, no?

Bucky Barnes thinks that that reason might be you. He doesn’t believe in soulmates, but whatever the hell you are to him — well, it’s pretty goddamn close, that’s for sure.

The two of you are sat in the compound’s shared kitchen, about to have dinner together. Well, perhaps more accurately,  _you’re_ sat on one of the barstools by the kitchen island, whilst Bucky is stood by the stove, manning the stir-fry. You’d offered to help, but after almost slicing off the tip of your finger (you’d think a trained super-spy would have better knife-wielding skills, right?), Bucky had given you a stern glare and shooed you away. He’d chuckled at your pouting and now watches you from the corner of his eye as he stirs the vegetables about.

“Still sore?” Bucky asks, noticing the way you’re absentmindedly massaging your calf.

“Yeah, a little,” you sigh, “Nat went a little overboard with the leg training today, I think,”.

“Or maybe you’re just a wuss,” Bucky teases, snorting when you narrow your eyes indignantly at him.

“Excuse me, Barnes,” you retort, “I’d like to see  _you_  try keeping up with Nat’s leg routine. She’s gotten it straight from the devil, I swear,”.

Bucky laughs, shaking his head as he turns his attention back to the wok, adding in a handful of beansprouts. The fragrant smell of coconut oil and garlic permeates the air, making his stomach growl impatiently. “Nah, I’d rather not,” he drawls, “Steve’s hard enough to keep up with, thanks,”.

“Oh, don’t remind me,” you groan, face contorting into a grimace at the memory. “I trained with him once and that was more than enough for me, thank you very much!” you giggle. Bucky’s heart does a little excited flutter at the sound. He can’t help but admire the way your eyes crinkle at the corners, the way you throw your head back slightly, baring your neck in a most—

_Barnes_ , he reprimands himself, subtly shaking his head to rid himself of those kinds of thoughts.

They’ve been springing up on him more frequently, as of late, creeping up on him from out of nowhere. ‘Distracting’ is one way of describing them, but they’re more than that, he knows. Those thoughts are but the smallest symptom of a problem so enormous, Bucky has no desire to even think about it anymore than he has to.

He sighs internally as he switches off the stove and crouches down, opening one of the cabinets to retrieve a couple of bowls. With his back turned to you momentarily, Bucky allows himself a second to collect his thoughts, whilst also mentally berating himself for losing control of the situation like this.

Emotions were the big no-no of your agreement.

————————————

Bucky is sitting in one of the smaller meeting rooms in the compound, reading over the mission briefing pack he’d been given a couple of hours ago, in preparation for his and Natasha’s trip to Austria. He looks up when the door creaks open. You poke your head around the edge, flash him a wry smile and sidle in.

“Hey…” you murmur, sliding into a seat on the other side of the oval table. Bucky’s eyes flicker warily over your expression, trying to figure out what it is you want from him. The two of you haven’t made much contact with each other ever since he moved into the compound a few months ago, and he’s struggling to figure out why you could possibly be wanting to talk to  _him_ , of all people, all of a sudden.

“Hey,” Bucky replies, voice clipped and curt.

The smile you give him seems a little forced around the edges, as if you’re trying to mask your discomfort. It’s the kind of smile that immediately sets Bucky on edge. Already, he can feel the cogs whirring in his mind, trying to figure out what it is he’s done to upset you. Was it the fact that he ate the last slice of chocolate cake last night? Damn it, he knew you’d been eyeing it up, he should’ve saved it—

“I—have something to talk to you…about…” you say slowly, keeping your eyes trained on your fingers. You must be nervous, given the way you’re picking anxiously at your nail polish.

“It’s…not…easy to say—like, there’s no delicate way to put it,” you continue, eyes briefly darting up to catch his gaze, before just as quickly shifting their focus away again. You’re driving him insane with this beating around the bush business. Bucky can feel his brain kicking into overdrive, reading too much into the situation, just as coils of fear tighten in his gut, like a nest of snakes slithering around in a sickening manner.

You clear your throat nervously, straighten up and flash him another smile as if to say,  _fuck it_. “I heard you. Last night. And…all the nights before that, actually,”.

“Huh?” Bucky grunts, brows pulling together in confusion. You heard him? Last night? Doing what? Bucky went to bed late last night, so he made sure to be pretty quiet except for—

“Oh my god,” he groans, slumping forward and resting both elbows on the table as he covers his face with his hands. Bucky can heel the hot flush of shame creeping across his cheeks and down his neck. He hasn’t felt this embarrassed in a long while. The last time…was probably back in Brooklyn, when Steve unexpectedly came home early and walked in on Bucky with a girl he’d brought home, what was her name again? Daisy? Dorothy? Something along those lines.

Even so. The rush of embarrassment he felt then is almost nothing compared to the utter mortification he feels now.

“I am so, so sorry you had to hear that,” Bucky croaks, “I—I’ll promise to be quieter, next time, I—,”

“Bucky,” you interject smoothly. Your tone is neither reprimanding nor upset — it’s actually a little bit amused, strangely enough. Tentatively, Bucky lowers his hands, peeking over his fingers to study your expression. From the way you’re biting the inside of your cheek, he can tell that you’re desperately trying to hold in your laughter.

“You’re…not mad?” Bucky asks slowly.

“No, I’m not,” you reply, shaking your head, “It’s natural, Bucky—I…we all do it,”.

Bucky throws his hands over his ears like a little five-year-old, because he most certainly does  _not_  want to be having this conversation right now, least of all with you. “Look, forget about it, ‘kay?” he manages to grit out, “I’ll…fuck, let’s not talk about this, alright? I don’t need you…concerning yourself with my sex life,”.

You snort. “More like, ‘lack thereof’,”

“Oh my god!” Bucky groans, narrowly resisting the urge to bang his head on the table repeatedly, until he passes out. “Alright, you know what? I’m leaving—,”

“No! Wait, Bucky, sit down—,”

“Y/N, I said  _drop_ —,”

“Please, would you at least listen to what I—,”

“No I won’t, because I don’t—,”

“James Buchanan Barnes,” you growl, narrowing your eyes threateningly and crossing your arms over your chest, pinning him to his seat with the intensity of your gaze. “Would you  _listen_  to me?”

Bucky swallows nervously and, despite the fact that every muscle in his body is  _screaming_ at him to do otherwise, nods his head in ascent and forces himself to slump back into his chair. He makes sure to keep his gaze downcast, focused on the hem of his hoodie. This conversation is embarrassing enough without having to look you in the eye as the two of you have it.

“Look, we all have desires, okay?” you begin, your voice taking on a more placating tone.  “We’re all human, and we all have bodily… _urges_ , that can’t always be controlled. And I’m just saying…instead of having to stew in a soup of sexual frustration, why not…find other outlets?”

“Other outlets?” Bucky echoes, voice dubious. “Are you—what’re you saying?”

“Why don’t you…y’know…” Bucky looks up as your voice trails off. Your hands are gesturing wildly as you search for the right words. “Like, find someone? A girl—or a guy, if that’s your thing,” you add hastily.

“A girl?” Bucky repeats dumbly, “I don’t follow,”.

You groan, pinching the bridge of your nose as your eyes screw shut. “I’m saying…why don’t you go out there and find someone to bring home. I’m sure you still know how to woo a woman, Barnes,” you tease, smiling impishly at him.

As lighthearted as your tone may be, all Bucky can focus on is the heavy bitterness settling in his chest. “You think a girl’d want me, Y/N?” he says harshly, his words laced with venom.

Something in his tone makes your head snap up, alarm flaring in your eyes. “Bucky, I didn’t—,”

“Because why would anyone ever want me, Y/N?” Bucky snarls, voice dripping with self-hatred. “I’m fucked up, is what I am. And ‘sides, even if I could’a gotten a girl — which is a fat chance, by the way, ’cause look at me,” Bucky says, gesturing towards his metal arm, “I wouldn’t trust myself ‘round her. I’m too strong. I could hurt her,”.

“Bucky,” you murmur, and something in your voice — something tender and sympathetic and gentle — makes his heart twist like someone’s jamming a knife between his ribs. Bucky Barnes knows that he doesn’t deserve gentle, knows that he is unworthy of your kindness. All he’s ever been in his life is cruel and unforgiving, why should he expect himself to be treated any differently?

“Hey, Bucky, hear me out, okay?” you say softly, getting out of your seat and coming around the table to stand beside him. Your hands hover momentarily, as if you’re about to touch him, but then you seem to think better of that idea, letting your hands drop to your sides. He’s thankful for that. Bucky doesn’t think he would’ve been able to handle your touch — not because he doesn’t  _want_ your hands on his body, no, but because he knows your touch would have been soft where all he’s known is rough, brusque and clinical.

Bucky doesn’t know how to handle soft.

“I know you think you don’t deserve this,” you say gently, “But you do. No matter what you’ve done, no matter what you’ve been through…Bucky you do,”. Bucky goes to open his mouth but you plough on, “Look, I know you might not believe me, might not believe any one of us, no matter how many times we say it…but the thought is there, ‘kay? You deserve to be loved, Bucky,”.

Bucky feels like his heart has been through a hyper-accelerated spin-and-rinse cycle in a washing machine in the space of the last five minutes. First the whole shock of discovering that you’d overhead him doing unspeakable acts in the bedroom, and now  _this_? Are you trying to give him a heart attack or something? He’s a senior citizen, for goodness sake, you should know better.

_Yeah, don’t let Wilson hear you saying that, Barnes_ , he thinks ruefully.

Bucky sighs heavily. “Okay. I’m listening to you,” he says quietly.

A moment of silence passes. From the corner of his eye, Bucky can see you opening and closing your mouth several times, as if you’re figuring out the best way to phrase your next words.

“Look, okay, here’s the thing,” you say, keeping your gaze trained on your feet, “The world has changed a lot since you were around. And…sometimes…people, a pair of consenting adults, that is…well, I guess you could say that they have an arrangement. A…no-strings-attached arrangement,”.

With every word that comes out of your mouth, Bucky feels himself getting progressively more confused. “Ohhh…kay?” he says slowly.

“Basically, what I’m suggesting is that we have sex, without getting into a relationship,” you say, the words coming out in a sudden gush, stumbling over themselves in their hurry to leave your mouth. “Like I said, it’s a thing, nowadays. We’d be friends who fuck each other, completely casual,”.

If it were physically possible for jaws to hit the ground, Bucky is certain that his would be trailing on the floor behind him. The notion is so completely foreign to him, that he has no idea where to even  _begin_  asking questions. People do that now? Bucky already knew that attitudes towards sex had changed since the 30s, but he hadn’t expected them to have changed  _this_ drastically.

Admittedly, the idea does have it’s appeal. You are, after all, a beautiful woman. If there’s one thing Bucky Barnes hasn’t forgotten how to do, it is to appreciate a beautiful woman when he sees one, and you are definitely one of the most stunning people he’s ever set eyes on. And not just on a material level, either. Bucky knows beyond a shadow of doubt that your beauty is something a part of every cell in your body, inside and out.

But as much as he wants you, a part of him feels guilty — and not just because he knows that he doesn’t want to taint your glory with his darkness.

“I can’t just— _use_  you like that, Y/N!” Bucky protests, “I—that’s so wrong!”

“You’re not  _using_ me,” you explain patiently, “If I want this — want you — and am completely okay with doing things with you…well, then, what’s wrong with that? It’s consensual, right?”

Bucky’s heart stops. “You want me?” he echoes quietly, not daring to meet your eyes. Why would anyone want him? Bucky knows that he’s messed up — a patchy, busted-up excuse of a human being. He finds it impossible to comprehend what someone as perfect as you could ever see in him.

“Yes, Bucky,” you reply, in a tone that makes it seem as if the fact were completely obvious. “I do want you. You’re a good man, Buck. We’d be helping each other out by doing this,”.

Bucky is torn. His heart wants to say yes, but the rational, logical side of himself knows that saying yes would be a terrible idea. You just don’t get it — you don’t realise how  _dangerous_ Bucky is. His arm was created as and still is, a highly precise weapon, perfectly capable of hurting you if Bucky lost control of himself in the moment. “But…why? I—I could hurt you,” Bucky says weakly, his rational mind trying valiantly to dissuade you, even as a larger part of him yearns to say  _yes_.

You shrug nonchalantly. “I’ll heal. I’ll heal within seconds, remember? Accelerated healing, and all that good stuff. You might hurt me, but I can guarantee you, I’ve been hurt worse,”.

Bucky groans internally. It seems you’ve been spending too much time with Steve, lately, and his stubbornness and disregard for personal safety seems to have rubbed off on you. “Y/N!” Bucky cries in frustration, “Just because you have super-human healing abilities, or whatever—that doesn’t mean that you should be throwing yourself into dangerous situations!”

“But it’s not danger!” you protest, voice rising in response to Bucky’s tone, “It’s only  _you_ , Bucky, I trust you—,”

“You shouldn’t,” Bucky growls, even though it pains him to admit it, how evil he really is. He hastes that he can’t trust himself enough to be around you, but the risk is not worth it. Bucky would never hurt you. He would never be able to live with himself if he did.

Your jaw snaps shut. “Fine,” you huff, “If you don’t want me, I can’t force you,”

And right there is where you’re wrong.

Because Bucky  _does_  want you, wants you in every way imaginable. Your face is the one he sees when he closes his eyes, your name is the one on his lips as he strokes his hand over his cock. He’d never admit these desires to you, though. You’d probably think he was a freak, or something.

“But before you make a decision,” you continue, stepping into his space and letting your hand rest on his shoulder, “Before you tell me what your answer is, I want you to think about it, okay? I’m not gonna break, Bucky. I can handle this. I want this, if you’ll let me have it,”.

Those three letters balance precariously on the tip of his tongue. From the way you’re looking at him, from the unrelenting fire behind your eyes and the defiant set of your jaw, Bucky knows that you know this too. But, instead of giving in like he wants to, all Bucky does is nod curtly and force his mouth to say, “I’ll think about it,” in a tight voice.

————————————

A week later, Bucky finally caved in.

With the power of hindsight on his side, he can look back on those seven days between you propositioning him and him finally giving into his desires with a sort of bemused fondness. Why did he ever believe that his will was strong enough to withstand your alluring pull? How could he resist someone so pure and beautiful and radiant in every way possible? It’s an infeasible task; Bucky never stood a chance against someone like you. You’d had him hooked from the day he first met you, and you’re practically all he’s ever thought about since then.

Over the last seven or so months, the two of you have developed an interesting relationship. The colloquial term, as Bucky’s come to learn, is ‘friends-with-benefits’. You and Bucky will fuck every week or so, depending on stress levels and libido, plus the general state of things at the time. The rest of the team has thus far remained unaware of the little arrangement Bucky has going on with you. That’s not necessarily because he thinks they’ll disapprove, it’s more to do with the fact that he doesn’t need the rest of the team prying on his — fairly active — sex life. The gang has a reputation for being rather nosy when it comes to that sort of stuff.

In between your mind-blowing fuck sessions, Bucky will hang out with you and do the things that any normal pair of friends would.

Except.

Lately, the feelings he’s been harbouring towards you are definitely something beyond the level of ‘just a friend’. He cares for you in a way he thinks a lover would care for their partner. The thing is, as part of your agreement, feelings were supposed to be out of the equation entirely. This was supposed to be a strictly platonic relationship, with a helping of sex on the side.

To be fair, Bucky had gone into the aforementioned agreement with more than a little crush on you, so he knew that he was laying down in his grave before it’d even been fully dug. He was doomed from day one, but what a sweet, sweet torture it has been. He never meant for things to get where they are now.  _Congratulations Barnes_ , he thinks dryly,  _you just went and screwed things up, like you always do. Why couldn’t you keep your stupid little heart in check?_

But what really hurts — the thought that keeps him awake at night — is that Bucky knows in his heart of hearts that you could never feel the same way, despite how much he wants you to do just that. He wants you to want him. Oh, how desperately he craves to hear those words spill from your sinfully soft lips. But why would you settle for someone like him? A monster, an abomination, an incomplete creation? He wants you to want him, even though he knows that such a future is never possible.

It’s a depressing truth, really.

You are the perfection to his destruction, the angel to his demon. The two of you are polar opposites and there is no way Bucky could ever hope to be with you the way he wants to be with you.

“Hey, Bucky?” you call, drawing him out of his thoughts, “You’ve been staring at those plates for a while now, you okay there?”

“Um, yeah,” he says hastily, shaking his head to re-centre his mind. “Just…are plates or bowls better, do ya think?”

“Meh, I’d go with bowls,” you reply.

Bucky nods, takes a deep breath to steady himself, then retrieves two bowls from the back of the cabinet, setting them on the kitchen counter so that he can serve up the stir-fry.

Your chatter has picked up again, and Bucky lets your soothing, melodious voice float through his head as he chews over his situation. This needs to end, somehow, Bucky knows that. If he can’t keep his runaway emotions in check, then the best thing for him to do — the healthiest thing for him to do — would be to cut you out of his life completely. Rip the band-aid off and embrace the pain.

_Not tonight, though_ , he decides, because damn it, Bucky can never show any self-restraint when it comes to you. He wants to be selfish,  _needs_  to be selfish, just one more time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reblog this chapter on [tumblr!](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/166634719190/a-messed-up-place-one/)


	3. TWO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky wants what he can’t have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve only skimmed through this chapter very briefly to check for errors, so hope it doesn’t disappoint! Please be aware of the new tags which have been added - this chapter has a helluva lot of sex in it. 
> 
> p.s.: If you like Bucky x Reader smut, appreciate this chapter, because it’s the only smut you’re gonna get for a while…
> 
> p.p.s.: y’all gonna hate me for the ending, I just know it.

“We’ve got the compound to ourselves tonight, y’know?” you say casually, as you finish putting away the dried dishes.

Bucky’s ears perk up at your statement, knowing full-well the meaning behind your words. “Oh yeah?” he replies, “Thought Nat was sticking around tonight,”.

“Nope,” you say, leaning your hip against the counter and crossing your arms over your chest. Bucky has to physically restrain himself from staring at the strip of skin that is exposed when your t-shirt rides up a little — and that is a task easier said than done. It’s a delicious-looking expanse of skin, one that he would very much like to kiss right now.

“Oh? Where’d she go, then?” he asks absentmindedly.

“Sam wanted to visit his ma, so Nat decided to follow. Said she wanted to try out this famous apple pie that Sam keeps talking about,” you explain. A suggestive smirk is tugging on the corner of your lips, giving him an indication of the thoughts currently filling your head. Bucky very much likes where this night seems to be headed.

“Really, now?” Bucky murmurs, getting off his stool and sauntering over to you, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. “And what about the rest of the gang, remind me again?”

You roll your eyes. Bucky’s being a little shit and he knows it, but he likes this part of the game, likes watching you trying to charm your way into his pants.

(To be fair, it doesn’t take much effort on your behalf to charm his pants off, but Bucky likes watching you do it all the same. It’s ridiculously arousing.)

“Well, Tony’s probably whisked Pepper off to some far-off island for a private date,” you say, “Clint’s back home with his family and Steve and Wanda are off on a mission,”.

“Hmm, really does seem like we’ve got the place to ourselves tonight, then,” Bucky says, feigning surprise in his tone. He comes to a stop in front of you, resting his hands on the counter such that his forearms are brushing your waist, effectively caging you in. Bucky doesn’t miss the way your pupils dilate infinitesimally, or the way your breathing hitches at the sudden proximity.

“Yeah, it sure does,” you murmur distractedly. Your eyes are trained on him, so Bucky makes a show of looking pointedly at your lips, then licking his own.

“So what d’you wanna do tonight, Y/N?” he asks, purposefully letting his voice drop several registers, turning low and husky in the way he knows will make your knees go weak.

In response, you place your hands on his waist and draw him closer, until your noses are almost brushing. “I’ve got a few ideas,” you breathe.

With you this close, it would be so easy for Bucky to tilt his head to the side, lean in and press his lips to yours. It’s what he wants to do.

But as tempting as it may be, he resists the urge, because that’s another boundary that has long since been established; no kissing. It was a boundary that you had asked for, saying that you associated kissing with romance and, given that nothing romantic should ever bloom between you, you felt that it was a line you didn’t want to cross. At the time, Bucky had been more than okay with agreeing to your terms.

Now, though? Now he aches to feel the press of your lips against his, yearns to know what your mouth tastes like, longs to learn the kind of sounds you’d make when his lips are interlocked with yours. But, in a cruel twist of fate, the thing he wants most is the very thing he can never have. Bucky would willingly sell his soul to the devil, just to know what it feels like to kiss you.

Because let’s face it, if he’s headed to hell anyway, what’s he got left to lose?

Bucky refocuses his attention on you when you teasingly slide your fingers underneath the hem of his shirt, toying with the skin above his waistband. “It’s been a while, Buck,” you murmur, shooting him a lazy half-smile, “Need you inside me,”.

“Fuck,” Bucky groans, your words having their intended effect on him, making his cock hard in about five seconds flat. Though the idea of fucking you does have its appeal, Bucky is also mentally cursing himself for being so weak, for allowing his body this sinful pleasure one last time — and that’s always what he tells himself,  _just one last time, Barnes,_ always.

He fists his fingers in the hem of your shirt and gives it a tug. You get the message, lifting your arms over your head so Bucky can whip the garment off you. Bucky allows himself half a heartbeat to admire your ripe breasts, encased in the lace of your bra, then deftly slips a hand behind your back, unhooks the clasp and tosses it on top of your shirt.

Back in the day, James Buchanan Barnes was, among other things, renowned for his quick fingers. It’s a skill he seems to have retained, and for that he is thankful.

Bucky leans down, kisses the hinge of your jaw, then lets his lips trail down the side of your neck, relishing the way your breath stutters when he nips at your pulse point. He continues travelling south, mouthing wet kisses along your collarbone and chest before finally catching one pebbled nipple between his lips, gently brushing his teeth over the bud as his tongue works magical circles around it. You moan heatedly, knuckles turning white as your grip on the edge of the counter tightens. Your head falls back as your chest pushes forward, shoving your breasts into his face. Bucky switches back on forth between your mounds, teasing them with his mouth and fingers until you’re practically quaking with desire.

You part your legs, giving Bucky enough room to shove one muscled, jean-clad thigh between them. You drop your weight a little, so that you can shamelessly grind yourself on his leg. Bucky growls, pressing himself against you, such that with every sinuous roll of your body, you’re brushing yourself against his bulge. Bucky’s cock is rock-solid, straining painfully against his fly, the denim feeling all-too-constrictive against his sensitive skin.

When he feels like he’s lavished your breasts with enough attention, Bucky swoops down, hooks his arms around the backs of your thighs and hoists you onto the counter. You gasp at the sudden movement and Bucky presses in on his advantage, swiftly unbuttoning your jeans and sliding them down your legs whilst you’re still trying to process the situation.

With you clad in nothing but a pair of black lace panties, Bucky steps back to admire his handiwork. Your hair is messy, your skin is covered in a thin film of sweat and your eyes are heavy-lidded, darkened with arousal. Noticing the way he looks at you, you part your legs, lean back on your palms and toss your hair back. The position draws his gaze to your sex, where he can clearly see the wet spot forming in the crotch of your panties. His nostrils flare at the sight and his dick — if it were possible — gets even harder.

“Like what you see, Barnes?” you coo, the right side of your mouth quirking up into a smirk.

‘Like’ doesn’t even capture the whole picture. In answer to your question, Bucky sinks to his knees between your parted legs, hooks his thumbs into the waistband of your panties and slides them off your legs, flinging them over his shoulder. He hauls you closer to the edge of the counter and pauses for a moment to drink in the sight in front of him — your pretty pink pussy on display for him, glistening with the evidence of your arousal, just begging to be tasted. Your heady aroma fills his lungs and he inhales deeply, confident in the fact that nothing could be as intoxicating as this.

“Bucky,” you whine impatiently, when you catch him staring for too long. A low chuckle rumbles out of his throat. Bucky turns his head to the side and bites your inner thigh, just above your knee. He makes his way up your right leg, alternating between sucking bruises and planting sloppy kisses on your skin. By the time he’s made his way to the apex of your thighs, you’re a whimpering mess, the fingers of one hand fisted in his hair and feverishly yanking him closer.

Bucky acquiesces your request, his tongue darting out to trace over your nether lips. Your flavour coats his tongue, exploding like fireworks in his mouth. He moans reverently at the taste; sweeter than caramel and a million times more addictive. No matter how many times he gets his lips on you, Bucky will never quite get over the shock of how wonderful you taste. Within seconds, his cheek and chin are coated with your juices and a thrilled shiver runs down Bucky’s spine; he loves it when you make him messy.

Deciding that you’ve been teased enough for the night, Bucky wastes no time in giving you exactly what you want. Over the past few months, he’s learned exactly how your body works. He knows exactly what to do to make you feel like you’re buzzing out of your skin, like the threads that hold you together are about to unravel at any second. Bucky gently grazes his teeth across your sensitive nub, then closes his lips around it, sucking it into his mouth as his tongue bats over your clit. You mewl, hips grinding down onto his face, greedily seeking out more.

Bucky loves it when you use his body for your own pleasure, if only because he loves the sounds you make when you’re riding out your climax. Bucky’s lips release your clit, only to shift their attention to your pussy lips. His tongue laps at the juices coating your folds, then slips between them, the muscle stiffening as he fucks it in and out of your hole. Bucky moans in approval when you hiss and dig your nails into his shoulder, marking up his body. The throbbing in his cock is too insistent to bear at this point, so with shaking hands, Bucky frees his erection from the constraints of his jeans and wraps his metal hand around it, idly jerking himself off whilst he focuses most of his attention on you.

“F-fu-uck, Bucky,” you gasp, thighs trembling on either side of his head, “Oh-ohhh don’t stop, plea-please, I—fuck, m’so close,”.

Bucky slips two flesh fingers inside you, crooking them against your upper walls as he starts to slide them in and out of of your slick pussy. On each pass, he makes sure to brush the tips of his fingers across that sensitive spot inside you, relishing the way you mewl for more each time. When his thumb presses against your clit, you let out a particularly high-pitched squeal, fisting your hand in his hair and shoving his face back to your sex. Bucky smiles inwardly, then gets to work, closing his lips around the bud once more as his tongue traces all manner of patterns across it.

“Fuck!” you shout, “I—ohhhhhh my  _god,_ Buck—please don’t stop,”.

Your juices are trickling down his hand and wrist. Bucky can feel your silken walls fluttering around his fingers, signalling your impending release. He rips his mouth off of you for half a second to growl out, “Come for me, princess,” before he’s back at it with a vengeance, eating you out for all he is worth, because this might be the last time he ever gets to do—

 _Barnes. Not the right time to think about that_.

You announce your orgasm with a silent scream, eyes screwing shut and mouth falling open as your head tips back. Your thighs tremble minutely around Bucky’s head as you wantonly grind your hips into his face. Bucky moans in appreciation and uses his mouth and fingers to bring you through your high, trying to prolong it as much as possible. He abandons his dick so that he can use his metal fingers to pinch your nipples, giving you that little kick of pain that you love so much.

When you finally push him away because you’re too sensitive, Bucky sits back on his heels and allows his eyes to roam over your naked body, taking in the rapid rise and fall of your chest as you attempt to catch your breath and the tiny, satisfied smile playing on your lips.

“Wow,” you croak, “Fuck, I needed that,”. You open your eyes to look at him and arch an eyebrow in amusement. “Someone’s a little excited, I see,” you tease.

Bucky glances down and realises that he must be quite the sight. Fully clothed, with his cock pulled out of the fly of his pants, the tip flushed scarlet and wet with pre-come. His hair’s a mess too, most of it freed from his ponytail after you’d been raking your fingers through it.

You hop off the counter and stick a hand out to help him up. “Shall we take this to my room”” you suggest.

“Fuck yeah,” Bucky breathes, grasping your hand to pull himself up. Your discarded clothes get left on the kitchen floor as you hastily drag Bucky down the corridor towards your room.

Once inside, you slam the door shut and press Bucky up against it, latching your mouth onto the underside of his jaw and nibbling on the sensitive skin there. Bucky’s hands come to rest on your ass and he kneads it aggressively, which only seems to spur you into kissing his neck with more gusto. Without warning, Bucky picks you up and carries you over to the bed, dropping you on top of it as he tumbles down after you.

Supporting himself with his forearms on either side of your head, Bucky brushes his lips across your cheek and down your jaw, revelling in the way you sigh contentedly, tipping your head back to give him access to your graceful neck. Knowing that the bruises will be gone come morning light, Bucky is not hesitant to be a little bit on the rougher side, catching the skin of your neck between his teeth and nipping  _hard_ , hard enough to make you gasp. He smirks against your skin, loving the fact that you like it rough, loving the fact that you’re frantically grasping at his shirt, trying to tug it off.

“What is it, Y/N?” Bucky teases, bending down to suck another bruise to the crook of your shoulder, “What d’you want, princess?”

His heart twinges with longing at the pet name. ‘Princess’ came about one fine night when you’d introduced him to the wonders of bondage and orgasm denial. In Bucky’s mind, his fondest, sharpest memory from that night is the way you’d moaned lustfully when he’d called you ‘princess’, growled it against your collarbone as his cock pumped away inside you.

Pet names and terms of endearment are another one of those funky grey areas between the two of you. Besides Bucky calling you ‘princess’, sometimes, a ‘baby’ will slip out every now and then during the heat of the moment, but both of you make a point to never call each other anything that could be taken as even  _remotely_  romantic outside of a sexual situation; another one of your rules.

Thing is, Bucky wants to. He’d like to be able to call you his girl, his baby, his sweetheart, but he knows that by doing so, he’d be crossing that arbitrary boundary between ‘friend’ and ‘lover’.

So princess is what he has to settle for. It’s better than nothing, at least. Sure, when the word falls from his lips, it probably has a different meaning to you than it does to him, but something is better than nothing.

In truth, Bucky would like to treat you as more than just his princess — he wants to treat you like his queen, like the goddess that you truly are. He would willingly worship the ground that kissed the soles of your feet, just to be worthy of your presence. Perhaps the imagery might be a tad overdramatic, but the intention behind it is clear; you deserve so much more than what he has to offer, but Bucky’ll do everything he can do to prove that he is capable of providing those things for you. He wants to be whatever you need him to be.

His thoughts are drawn back to the present when your sharp nails rake down his sides, pulling a deep rumble of approval from somewhere deep inside his chest. Bucky sits up momentarily to yank his t-shirt over his head and throw it onto the floor, and is then pulled back down to you, so that your lips can roam over his toned chest. Your hands are tracing patterns over his abs, trailing lower and lower until they’re dipping into the waistband of his jeans. You slide your hand into his opened fly and wrap your soft fingers around his cock, making Bucky moan hotly against your shoulder, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as your velvety palm strokes his hardness. Somehow, the two of you manage to push his jeans over his ass and down his legs.  

You roll him onto his back, so that you can straddle his waist. Bucky attempts to sit up but you press down on his flesh shoulder, silently telling him to stay still. You scoot downwards until you’ve settled yourself between his legs, flashing him a salacious wink as you take hold of the base of his cock.

“Y/N, you don’t have to,” Bucky says, moving to sit up.

“Shh, lie back,” you breathe, flattening your palm against the centre of his belly and pushing him down. “Lemme take care of you,”.

“O-oh, fuck,” Bucky chokes out, fingers fisting into the sheets as you lick the bulbous head of his cock like it’s a goddamned  _lollipop_  before closing your lips around it. Bucky throws his head back and moans, hips jerking up into your mouth. Thanks to your lack of a gag reflex, you take him  _deep_ on the first try, your fist encircling the part of his cock that’s not in your mouth.

“Fuck yes, princess, that’s it,” Bucky murmurs, threading his fingers through your hair, his hand resting against the back of your head as his eyes fixate on the way your lips are stretched obscenely wide around his member. You pull out all the stops tonight, suckling the head of his cock with just enough suction to make his toes curl, lapping up the pearls of pre-come that drool out of his slit, using your tongue to trace the veins on his shaft and bobbing your head up and down his length, making little gurgling noises each time your nose brushes the nest of curls at the base of his cock.

All too soon, Bucky finds himself gritting his teeth and clenching his fists as he feels the first waves of pleasure beginning to swirl around the base of his cock. “Y/N,” he chokes out, “Ah—fuck—m’close,”.

You don’t let up your rhythm, your free hand reaching up to gently cup his balls, fingers stroking the sensitive spot just behind them. The tight, wet, suction of your mouth seems to intensify, as your tongue continues to lap at the underside of his cock, teasing the prominent vein there. The grip of the hand jerking his shaft tightens, creating the perfect amount of friction as your fist continues to fly up and down his length. Bucky can feel himself drawing closer and closer to the edge.

“Y/N—please—ah,” Bucky moans, hips bucking up involuntarily as you do— _something_  with your tongue that feels fucking incredible. Bucky feels like he’s balancing on a tightrope on his toes, teetering precariously, about to fall over at any minute — a slight breeze could probably set him off, at this point. He never lasts particularly long when you get your mouth on him, you’re just too damn good at what you do.

You pull your lips off him for a second, but the hand on his cock never lets up.

“Come for me, Buck,” you breathe, voice hoarse and raspy, “Wanna taste you,”. And with that, you take Bucky back between your lips and suck him off with renewed vigour. It’s those words and, more importantly, the slight scratchiness in your voice that finally pushes him over the edge, into a chasm of bliss. Bucky feels his balls drawing up tight as release crashes through his system. He throws his head back and moans long and low, as spurt after spurt of his come floods your mouth. You continue to suckle his tip gently, riding out his orgasm with him. Once it’s over, you pull your mouth off him with a lewd pop.

You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, then crawl up and over his body, a devilish gleam in your eyes. Bucky’s still pretty hard — bless the universe for super-soldier serums — and still incredibly aroused, more than ready to play along with whatever you have planned.

“What do you want, Y/N?” Bucky husks, carding his fingers through your hair as you nuzzle against his neck, planting soft kisses on his collarbone. His eyes flutter shut at the contact and a soft, satisfied moan slips from his lips.

“Fuck me,” you breathe, your words muffled against his skin.

Bucky smirks to himself. “Yeah? How d’you want it, princess?”

Because you’re horny beyond words, by this point, you decide to show Bucky how you want it by swinging your leg off him and plopping yourself down on the bed, arching your back to present your ass in the air. Bucky growls appreciatively, drinking in the soft curves and gentle lines of your body, wishing he was an artist like Steve so that he could immortalise your beauty.

“Goddamn, princess,” he rasps, as he reaches over to your bedside table to fish out a condom, which he drops onto the bed beside you. Bucky gets up and straddles the backs of your thighs, running his metal hand down your spine tenderly, “You really want it, don’t ‘cha?”

You nod your head against the sheets, pushing your ass further back in a silent plea for him to  _hurry up_.

Bucky chuckles darkly, letting his hardened cock slide between the cheeks of your ass, fitting there like your ass was made for this purpose. His hands come to rest of your waist as he slowly, languidly, fucks himself between your cheeks. “Fuckin’ hell, princess,” Bucky murmurs, “Wish you could see. So fuckin’ hot,”.

“ _Bucky_ ,” you whine impatiently.

“How d’you want it, princess?” Bucky repeats, “Use your words,”.

“Want you t’fuck my pussy,” you slur.

“Yeah?” he breathes, hunching over you so that his lips are brushing the shell of your ear. “Hard and fast, princess?”

“Mmm…fuck yeah,” you purr, wiggling your ass insistently. Unable to take it any longer, and feeling like he just might explode out of his skin because of his unfulfilled sexual need, Bucky rips open the foil wrapper and slides the rubber over his length. He takes himself in hand, guides the head of his cock to your entrance and slowly sheathes himself within the welcoming, snug warmth of your pussy.

“Oh-oh, fuuck,” you mewl, pussy walls involuntarily clenching down around his shaft at the intrusion. The slight rippling sensation makes Bucky clench his teeth and hiss in pleasure.

“Keep doin’ that princess, and this ain’t gonna last long,” Bucky drawls, as he stills his hips inside you, giving you a moment to adjust to his girth. When Bucky feels you pressing your ass into his groin to indicate that you’re ready, he plants his palms on either side of your body, then shifts his hips back a little before slamming them forward again, hard enough to make your body jolt.

“Yessss,” you hiss, “Fuck yeah, jus’ like that, Bucky,”.

“Don’t hold back, yeah, princess?” Bucky pants, as his hips begin to piston rhythmically, “Wanna hear those pretty lil’ moans of yours,”. He pumps his cock in and out of your pussy with deep, steady strokes, making sure to bury himself as far as he can inside your pussy each time he bottoms out, so that you can feel the fullness of his member inside you.

“More, Bucky, more,” you plead, turning your head to the side to press your cheek into the cool sheets, “Harder,  _p-please_ ,”.

Bucky releases a guttural growl as he ramps up the speed, his steady tempo giving way to something more primal, frantic, almost, in its urgency. You moan with delight, muttering a litany of curses under your breath as Bucky slams into you with everything he’s got. Sweat drips off his brow, his hair is sticking to the back of his neck and the clapping sound of skin hitting skin fills the room. The earthy smell of sex assaults his nostrils, further stoking the fire that’s building in his gut. Bucky drops down to his forearms, draping his body over yours.

“Y’like that, princess?” he husks, hot breath fanning over your cheek, “Am I fuckin’ ya’ how ya’ wannit?”

“Y-y-yeah,” you whimper, biting down into the sheet to stifle a scream of sheer, unadulterated ecstasy. Bucky presses wet kisses along the back of your neck and shoulders, biting random patches of skin whenever he feels like it. His second orgasm of the night is creeping up on him, a trickle of raw, carnal,  _uninhibited_  pleasure oozing down his spine and pooling in his gut like warm honey.

“Fuck, tell me you’re close, Y/N,” Bucky rasps, burying his face in the crook of your neck as he drives into you for all he is worth. His thrusts are shallower now, barely pulling out each time. Bucky’s overcome with the need to be encased within you, buried as far inside you as he physically can go,. He wants to lose himself inside you because he’s only truly free when he’s with you like this, when nothing else matters except your pleasure.

“Ohhhh holy sh—please, yes m’close, Bu-cky,” you pant brokenly, “F-fu-ck, please, please,  _please_ , don’t stop—fuck, m’so close,”.

With some manoeuvring, Bucky manages to wedge his flesh hand underneath your body and wiggle it between your legs. You cry out helplessly when the tips of his fingers brush across your swollen, sensitive clit. Grinning in satisfaction, Bucky begins thrumming his fingers across your bundle of nerves in time with the pace of his thrusts, wanting to push you over the edge.

“C’mon, Y/N,” Bucky grunts, “Come for me. Be my good little princess and  _come_ ,”.

And just like that, he feels your walls fluttering around his shaft as your climax overtakes you. You’re chanting his name over and over like a prayer as your body tenses up beneath him, tauter than a bowstring. Satisfied that he’s done his job to the best of his abilities, Bucky finally gives into his body’s desires, chasing his own release. He gives a few more sloppy thrusts into your pussy, then buries himself balls-deep inside you as he empties the contents of his balls into the condom, moaning raggedly against the side of your neck. His orgasm starts off as an explosion at the base of his cock that rapidly radiates outward, setting every nerve ending in his body alight. Bucky’s skin feels like it’s on fire, and his vision whites out for a sec.

Once he’s come off his high, Bucky rolls off of you and flops down on his back, pulling the condom off him and tossing it into the waste basket you keep beside your bed. For a moment, the only sounds filling the room are that of your heavy breathing and his ragged pants, both of you trying to collect yourselves after what was undoubtedly one hell of a fuck.

“Bucky?” you ask, voice small and a little bit timid.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got something to tell you,”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to share this post on [tumblr!](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/166823644115/a-messed-up-place-two/)


	4. THREE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky gets some news which he does not want to hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We finally get to find out what reader has to say!! 
> 
> (But y'all ain't ready for this chapter, man. Y'all ain't ready)

Bucky trudges into his room, angrily brushing away the tears that prick at the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand. He blindly chucks his clothes into his laundry basket then throws himself onto the bed, smothering his face with his pillow.

He’s hurting on a more profound level than the physical.

There’s a gaping hole in his chest where his heart used to be, one that Bucky doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to refill. He doesn’t know how to patch himself together. If this were a battle wound, he’d bust out the first aid kit and fix himself up with some sutures, wrap the injury in white gauze. Instead, he has to contend with a throbbing pain somewhere deep inside him, a dull ache that seems to resonate through every fibre of his being.

It’s difficult for him to come to terms with the reality of the situation.

You’ve left him.

Bucky never imagined that losing you would feel this bad.

But can he even say that? Is it right for him to say that he’s ‘lost’ you, that you’ve ‘left’ him? Bucky knows that the two of you were never together in the first place, so what right does he have to feel as miserable and sorry-for-himself as he does? This was a relationship fated to fail from the outset, a doomed ship setting sail towards its inevitable demise. He’s just been patiently counting down the seconds as the clock ticked towards zero, when everything would explode in his face.

This love was always going to be his downfall, he knew that right from the start.

What Bucky didn’t know was just how excruciatingly, agonisingly,  _unbearably_  painful the fall would be.

—————————————

“I have something to tell you,”.

Bucky feels like his heart has frozen over. Ice spreads through his veins, chasing away the blissful warmth he attained after a glorious round of sex with you. Something in your voice puts his senses on high alert. Something in your voice tells him that he’s not going to like whatever it is you have to say.

“What is it?” Bucky croaks out, wincing internally at the hesitancy in his tone.

You roll over onto your side to face him, pillowing your cheek in your palm. From the way you’re gnawing incessantly at your bottom lip, Bucky knows that this must be something big. His mind is going into overdrive, every possible scenario playing out in his head. As the seconds bleed into endless minutes, Bucky feels himself slowly losing his mind. With each second that slips past, the stitches of sanity keeping him together are slowly beginning to come apart.

“Y/N,” Bucky murmurs, reaching his hand out to rest on your hip, “It’s okay. Whatever it is, you—you can tell me, I—,” he pauses to swallow nervously, “I’m here to listen,”.

Your gaze meets his. There’s a flicker of wistful sadness behind your eyes, here one moment, gone the next. You smile ruefully, then take a deep breath.

“Okay, um, I don’t know how to say this, but I—heh,” you mutter, your voice trailing off as you twist onto your back and throw an arm over your eyes. “Fuck it, okay, um, there’s…I have feelings for someone else,”.

Bucky’s frozen heart splinters into about a million shards. The far-fetched hope that Bucky might somehow find his happily ever after with you, the preposterous fantasy that he might one day admit his feelings to you, only to discover that you felt the same way — that dream has been crushed in a most devastating, destructive way. He feels dead on the inside, devoid of all emotion. It’s like you’ve flipped a switch inside him, opened up the floodgates that had been holding back those niggling worries and voices of doubt. Now that you’ve delivered the bad news, told him what he never wanted to hear, those fears come crashing through his system in an overwhelming, tsunami-like wave of depression. You haven’t even properly  _told_ him anything, yet Bucky feels like he’s heard all that you need to say.

They are the six words Bucky never wanted to hear, yet a part of him is sadistically glad. At least he didn’t have to say it, didn’t have to find the courage to break things off — he’s a coward, at heart, he knows that. Bucky would never have been able to find it in himself to say no to you, you’re just too addictive. Besides, he knew that this was coming. Bucky never deserved you. You were always too good for him.

He realises that you’re waiting for some sort of reaction from him, so Bucky forces himself to grit out an “Okay?”, voice tentative and a little unsteady.

“…yeah, um, we—we’ve both got feelings, for each other, actually, and…and I’d kinda like to see them more seriously, start goin’ on dates with them, y’know?” you explain, continuing to talk to him even though you’re not looking at him. Bucky’s glad for that; he feels like his expression is anything  _but_  neutral right now.

A thought pops into his head, one that brings the bitter taste of bile up his throat as a sickening feeling sets into his stomach. “Y/N…I haven’t…been…the other guy, right?” Bucky asks slowly, pushing himself into an upright position, swinging his legs over so that he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, his back towards you. “I—you…haven’t…done anything with this person, have you?”

God, how awful would that be? To be complicit — knowingly or not — in hurting someone else’s feelings; Bucky doesn’t think he’d be able to live with himself if that happened.

“Oh, Bucky, no,” you murmur, sitting up and scooting closer to him, resting a hand on his shoulder. “I wouldn’t use you like that, never,”.

“Good,” Bucky breathes, releasing a quiet sigh of relief as he turns to flash you a wry smile over his shoulder. He doesn’t know what exactly is ‘good’ about the situation right now, but at least it’s not as bad as it could get.

A pause, then, “I just wanted to tell you, because—well, because  _this_ ,” you say, using your free hand to gesture between yourselves, “This can’t keep going on. This wasn’t gonna last, Bucky,”.

If his heart hadn’t broken into a million shards already, it most certainly would have now. As it stands, the splintered remains of Bucky’s heart are now crumbling to dust, all shreds of hope vaporising into thin air. He’d take that god-awful chair — fuck it, he’d take  _years_ in that god-awful chair — over this. Anything but this. You might not know it, but your words are cutting him so much deeper, so much more  _viciously_ than any knife ever could.

“So this is it, then?” Bucky says tiredly, “This is the end?”

“Um—,”

“Look, Y/N, it’s okay, I ain’t mad at you,” Bucky assures you, placing his hand over the one you have on his shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze. “Thank you for telling me, I’m happy for you. I’ll just—see myself out, yeah?” he says, brushing your hand away as he moves to get off the bed.

“Bucky, wait—,” you say, your hand darting out to catch his metal wrist.

“No, Y/N, it’s fine, really, I get it,” Bucky murmurs, forcing another smile onto his features to mask the pain blooming somewhere deep within his soul. “Really, honestly, seriously—believe me. I’m  _happy_ for you, Y/N,” Bucky repeats, quirking up the right side of his mouth; playing it cool as if all is right with the world.

A hesitant smile tugs at the corners of your lips. “Yeah?” you mumble, “No hard feelings?”

“None at all,” Bucky replies, as he stoops down to pick up his clothes from the floor, “It was great while it lasted, but I’m glad your life is going somewhere,”. He straightens up as he pulls on his boxers, letting them hang low on his waist. The jeans and t-shirt he slings over his metal forearm.

You’re chewing your lip pensively, as if you have something to say. In truth, Bucky is  _this close_ to losing it himself — a part of him wants to unlock the invisible chains holding his feelings back, wants to let his mouth loose and spill all the secrets he’s been holding close to his now non-existent heart.

Bucky surprises himself by remaining strong, though, putting on a mask of bravery as he heads over to your door. He puts his hand on the handle and gives one last cursory glance over his shoulder, drinking in the sight of you, splayed out on the bed with your hair tousled and your body language screaming ‘I’ve-been-freshly-fucked’. He’ll probably never get to see you like this ever again, so Bucky allows himself a moment to commit your beauty to memory, searing your image into his brain.

You shoot him another smile. “Bye Bucky, I—,” you cut yourself off, turning to look away as you shake your head. “Never mind. See ya,” you say quietly, giving him an awkward wave.

“See ya ‘round, Y/N,” Bucky murmurs, turning the handle and letting himself out.

There’s a gloomy sense of finality in the air when the door swings shut with a resounding thud. Bucky feels incomplete — and if he thinks about it, he is.

He left his heart on the other side of the door.

—————————————

Bucky looks up from his book as someone raps their knuckles sharply on his door.

“Come in,” he calls. His heart does a weird flip-flop thing when he sees it’s you.

“Hey Buck,” you say, slipping into his room and easing the door shut behind you.

“Y/N, hey!” Bucky says, forcing cheerfulness into his voice even though he feels anything but.

It’s been over a week since the two of you broke off your arrangement and Bucky is still reeling from the blow. The metaphorical pain in his chest has given way to an everlasting melancholiness, like a dark, ominous storm cloud is permanently hanging over his head.

“You look good,” Bucky comments, as his eyes give you a quick once-over. Bucky can’t help but admire the way your [navy blue dress](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F12736811427025394%2F&t=OGFiZDEzMmNkOWQ3OTM1MDlmZTQxYmRlZDBhZDdjOTg0OGVkNDY0Zix4NUZ2VkFCSg%3D%3D&b=t%3ABByx4Sw7k4LxWPcVek2q8g&p=https%3A%2F%2Fa-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F166938862625%2Fa-messed-up-place-three&m=1) hugs your body, the ruffles around the neckline accentuating your collarbones and giving the smallest peek at your cleavage. It’s exactly your style; understatedly elegant and pulled together, striking that perfect balance between sexy and classy. Bucky feels like  _he can’t breathe_ because you’ve stolen his breath. You look absolutely stunning.

Then again, you always look stunning.

“You’re all dressed up, I see. It’s date night tonight, I take it?” Bucky asks.

“Yep,” you reply, coming to stand on his side of the bed and turning around, “Can you zip up my dress?”

“Oh—yeah, of course,” Bucky murmurs, reaching out a hand to complete the task. He tries to keep his contact as light and chaste as possible, despite the fact that all he wants to do is roam his hands over your body and call you his own.

That thought pushes him into a new line of thinking, on that results in an uncharacteristic pang of jealously flaring in his chest. His vision tinges red at the thought of some douchebag laying their hands on you, hell laying their  _eyes_ on you. They don’t deserve your beauty, whoever they are — no one does. You are a goddess walking among mere mortals; who on this earth is is worthy enough of your presence? Call him selfish, call him possessive, but Bucky is more than willing to punch the living daylights out of anyone who so much as displaces a single strand of hair from your perfect head.

Bucky clears his throat in an attempt to rid himself of such thoughts. It was a momentary lapse of control, but it leaves him no less shaken — Bucky is more than a little bit terrified of the thoughts that crop up in his head when he thinks about someone mistreating you. “So when do I get to meet this mystery man?” he asks lightly, clambering off the bed and trailing behind you as you head towards the door.

You chuckle as you step out into the hallway. “Oh—you can meet him now, actually,”.

“Meet who?” asks a familiar voice.

_Oh shit_.

“H-hey, Steve,” Bucky stutters, trying desperately to keep his eyes from bugging out as Steve makes his way down the hallway. His best friend has donned a crisp blue shirt and tucked it into a pair of well-tailored black pants, courtesy of Tony, most probably. A leather jacket completes the look.

“You look amazing, Y/N!” Steve cries, smiling fondly as he loops an arm around your waist. You give Steve a pleased smile, before your gaze flickers back towards Bucky. He sees the unspoken question in your eyes:  _is this okay?_

If he’s honest with himself, Bucky doesn’t know how to answer that.

All those thought that Bucky’s had about killing anyone that dared to lay their dirty hands on you?

Yeah, they can go right out the window.

Because no way in  _hell,_ is he going to be able to bring himself to kill his best friend.

(Been a hair too close to that once already. Bucky doesn’t plan on bringing Steve that near to death anytime soon.)

That throbbing in his chest had started up again, a pain that just seems to intensify as the moment draws on.

Who on this earth is worthy of a goddess’ love? Only an angel, of course. Steve’s heart is one of the purest that Bucky’s ever seen. The burden on his shoulders lightens, the tension in his chest eases slightly, knowing that he’s losing — losing? — you to Steve. Steve is someone he can trust. Steve is someone who’ll treat you right.

That doesn’t make the slap of reality hurt any less.

You have feelings for Steve, Steve has feelings for you, and all Bucky feels is a world of pain. He can deal with you loving someone else, but when that someone else is his best friend? Fuck, he can’t even hold it  _against_ Steve, it’s not like Bucky’s ever  _told_  him about his feelings for you, or about the arrangement he had with you. The punk’s going into this completely oblivious to the history between you and Bucky, so he can’t be blamed for anything. More than that, Bucky doesn’t  _want_ to blame Steve for anything —  _Bucky’s_ the one that’s wrong in the head, not Steve. Steve deserves happiness,  _you_ deserve happiness and Bucky?

Maybe Bucky doesn’t deserve happiness. It’s certainly what the fucking universe seems to be telling him right now.

What did he do in a previous life to deserve this torture?

Oh, that’s right. Only kill about a hundred people.

So is this okay? Bucky doesn’t fucking know. It’s the best scenario out of all the ones that could have possibly unfolded — as far as things could have played out, it’s far from the worse that could have happened.

“Buck? You alright?” Steve asks worriedly.

Bucky startles, realising that the two of you are looking at him with concern written all over your faces. Bucky needs to keep himself together, play it off like everything’s cool. The last thing he wants to do is ruin your first date with Steve.

“I’m fine, m’fine,” Bucky says, leaning his shoulder against the doorjamb and crossing his arms over his chest nonchalantly. “Just surprised to see you clean up so well, Rogers,”.

Steve rolls his eyes at Bucky’s teasing, seemingly satisfied with Bucky’s reply. You’re not as easily convinced, however, the hesitation still evident in your gaze. Bucky gives you a tiny smile and a small nod, mutely conveying his approval of you and Steve being together.

_We’ll talk later_ , you mouth, as Steve says something about heading down to the garage. Bucky waggles his eyebrows in reply. He doesn’t really want to talk, but if it brings you a peace of mind, he’ll go along with it. You still seem unconvinced, but are forced to turn your attention back to Steve as he takes you by the arm and guides you down the hallway.

“Have fun, kids,” Bucky calls, trying to inject as much mirth into his voice as possible. “Make sure you have her home before curfew, Steven, or I’ll come chasing after you with a broom!”. Bucky snorts when Steve gives him a rather ungentlemanly hand gesture in response.

Once the two of you have disappeared around the corner, Bucky goes back into his room, kicks the door shut and slumps down in front of it. He hugs his legs to his chest and curls up into a tight ball, resting his forehead on his knees. No matter how he looks at the situation, he’s fucked. He’s so, incredibly fucked.

How did things get this messed up?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Share this chapter on [tumblr](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/166938862625/a-messed-up-place-three/) :)
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated!


	5. FOUR

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky sees something that leaves him shaken up. He makes some bad decisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all like angst, right? Because I’m feeding it to you by the bucketload. 
> 
> and random, but: sorry that things keep happening in the kitchen. idk, I just have an obsession with kitchens, i guess?? Also, sorry if there are any typos. Didn’t really have a proper read-through of this. 
> 
> And and and....apologies once again that this series is taking FOREVER to update. I have a shit-ton of work to do.

True to your word, the day after your date with Steve, you come in search of Bucky in order to have a chat. Despite the fact that Bucky is expecting it, an uneasy sense of dread settles in his gut all the same.

Though he tells himself otherwise, Bucky knows that he’s skipped breakfast today because he doesn’t want to risk bumping into you in the kitchen. Though he tells himself otherwise, he knows that he’s opted to go for a long run outside today, in lieu of training in the gym, just so that he can stay out of your way for an hour more. Though he tells himself otherwise, he knows that he chose to sneak into the compound via the back gate, just to delay the inevitable.

Though he tells himself otherwise, Bucky knows that he’s more affected about the Steve ordeal than he’s willing to let on.

Unfortunately, Bucky’s avoidance tactics only get him so far. Eventually, hunger wins out and he is forced to wander into the kitchen in search of food. Lo and behold, who does he find there?

You, of course.

You’re standing with your back towards him, fixing up a sandwich by the counter, humming tunelessly under your breath. As always, Bucky is left breathless by your beauty; god, you’re not even  _doing_ anything, yet here he is, pining after you like a puppy without its owner. You’ve just showered, so your hair is slightly damp and plastered against your scalp. You’re dressed in a pair of leggings and an emerald green hoodie with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows. Fuck, why do you look so  _good_ in that outfit?

It is at that moment that you turn around, a flicker of an amused smile passing across your lips.

“Hey there, Buck,” you say, setting your knife down and putting a hand on your hip. “Why’re you being a creeper and just standing there?”

Bucky shakes his head as he walks over to the kitchen island and takes a seat on one of the bar stools. “Jus’ watching,” he murmurs, folding his arms and resting them on the countertop in front of him. A moment of silence passes between the two of you. The tension in the room is palpable, thick enough that Bucky could probably slice it with a knife, if he tried. Unspoken words hang in the air, just waiting to be said.

In the end, it’s Bucky who — for once in his life — plucks up enough courage to make the first move.

“So, Steve, eh?” he asks casually.

Just like that, something inside you snaps. You lean heavily against the countertop behind you as you cross your arms over your chest. “Bucky…I didn’t…I knew you’d be hurt. Or something, I dunno. I just—fuck, I know I should’a told you, but I didn’t ‘cause I was scared,”.

“Of what?” asks Bucky, cocking his head to the side in curiosity.

You shrug helplessly. “Dunno, how you’d react? How you’d feel about it? I just…I didn’t wanna hurt you, ‘cause…” your voice trails off.

“Cause what?” he prompts gently.

You sigh. “‘Cause I was already…y’know, breaking things off with you. I didn’t wanna pile on too much of the bad news all in one go,”

“Y/N,” Bucky murmurs, forcing a smile onto his features, “You don’t have to worry about it. Was I surprised? Hell yeah, I was. Does that make me angry? No, no it doesn’t,”. He’s telling the truth. Bucky  _was_ surprised to find out that you and Steve are seeing each other, but he’s not angry about it.

Upset, would perhaps be a better word. No reason to tell you that, though.

“Y/N, m’ being serious with you,” Bucky says, “Really,  _really_  serious — you wanna be with Steve? You go ahead. Don’t hafta care about me,”. Bucky has to hide his wince at those words, because really? That’s a lie — he  _wants_ you to care, wants it more than you’ll ever know.

You cock your head to the side, assess him for a moment longer, then nod firmly, accepting his response.

—————————

That was the last time you and Bucky had a conversation that lasted for more than five seconds.

Bucky spends his days moping around the compound, not talking to anyone unless it’s entirely unavoidable. Most of all, he does his damn hardest to keep his distance from you. He’s been avoiding you like you’re some sort of deadly disease.

It’s hard, Bucky won’t lie. The two of you used to be pretty close friends, once the sex broke had broken down the barriers between you. Having to rip you out of his life is — it’s a tough choice, but one which Bucky feels like he has to make, if only to preserve his sanity. Being around you just reminds him of things he’d rather forget. He doesn’t want to constantly be thinking about what he doesn’t have.

What he can’t have.

Of course he’s happy for you. Of course he’s happy for Steve. In fact, he’s  _ecstatic_  for the lil’ punk — not so little anymore, Bucky thinks ruefully. He’s so indescribably happy for the two of you, but his joy is dampened by a pain that is more severe than anything he could have ever imagined. Bucky would gladly take ten years in that god-forsaken,  _wretched_  chair, than another half-second of heartbreak.

But he can’t.

And so, Bucky finds himself hiding his emotions behind an increasingly strained smile, saying some variation of “S’all good” to throw people off his scent and going on with his day like nothing’s amiss.

Of course, this is easier said than done. Nowadays, he doesn’t even know what his body wants anymore. Bucky doesn’t know whether it’s even what his  _body_ wants at this stage, or whether it’s his head and heart warring for control over his self. God, love is one confusing puzzle, is it not?

—————————

It’s a quiet evening in the compound tonight. Everyone is off doing — whatever is is they do whenever they’re not saving the world from imminent danger. Hobbies, or something mundane like that.

Bucky snorts inwardly. Maybe  _he_ should think about getting a hobby. It’d certainly be one way of getting over you.

His stomach growls menacingly, reminding him that he hasn’t had anything for dinner, despite it being almost half-past ten at night. With a tired sigh, he switches off his tablet, tosses it onto his pillow and rolls himself out of bed. Bucky slides his feet into a pair of fluffy Captain America-themed slippers — a cheesy present that Sam had gotten him a couple of months ago — then trudges out of his room, towards the kitchen.

He’s been feeling out of it today — hell, he’s been feeling out of it  _most_  days, lately. Bucky finds himself in a permanent state of disregard, not really caring about the world around him, not really paying attention to what’s going on. Of course, all that changes when he’s on a mission, but even in that situation, he feels like he’s running on autopilot, living solely off the adrenaline pumping though his tired veins. Once the mission comes to a close and the wheels of the quinjet kiss the asphalt of the compound’s airstrip, he closes in on himself again, existing as nothing more than a shell of a man.

It’s unhealthy, he knows it. But fuck, you’ve been with Steve for just over two months now, and the fire of your romance has not yet died down to smouldering embers. It kills him. Everyday, Bucky feels like he dies a little more inside.

He doesn’t let it show, though.

Every morning, Bucky goes through the ritual of donning a mask of bravery which he parades behind for the rest of the day. He makes sure to keep the facade flawless and polished, not a single crack in sight. It’s a routine that’s as easy now as brushing his teeth or making his daily cup of coffee. No. Not easy. That’s the wrong word. He’s become  _accustomed_  to it. It’s part of his life now, and will probably continue to be part of his life in the foreseeable future.

Because if there’s one thing Bucky knows how to do well, it’s pretend like everything’s okay.

Bucky rounds the corner and is about to beeline for the fridge when—

—his heart freezes over. He forgets how to breathe. He forgets who he is, why he’s here, what his plan was. He feels ungrounded, like his soul is detaching from his body. Rage and misery, sorrow and jealousy — a tidal wave of emotions slam into him at full force.

Steve has you pinned between his body and the kitchen counter.

Steve has you pinned between his body and the kitchen counter, his arms encircling your waist and his lips  _locked onto yours_.

The way Bucky’s always wanted to. The way Bucky’s always dreamt of doing.

You’re standing on your tip-toes to reach Steve’s lips. The fingers of your right hand are curled around the nape of his neck, whilst your left hand is idly roaming over the defined muscles of his back. The two of you are wrapped up in a little bubble, that much is clear; consumed as you are in each other’s taste, neither of you notice Bucky standing there by the entrance to the kitchen, rooted to the ground in shock.

Equally, neither of you notice when Bucky — as silently as he can — turns on his heel and quick-marches the hell out of there.

Bucky is in pain.

He  _thought_ he was in pain before, but really, that was just a strange kind of numbness. It was blissful, with its quiet peace. The roiling agony inside his chest right now?  _This_ is pain; acute and sharp, like someone is jamming a serrated knife through his ribs and gouging him open in the most brutal way possible. It’s raw and it’s violent and what scrap of control he was holding onto vanishes at the sight of you and Steve in each other’s arms.

Happy.

Content.

In  _love_  in a way that Bucky can never hope to experience.

His feet carry him to the end of the corridor and down the fire escape. He’s cruising on autopilot again, so it takes Bucky’s brain a while to realise where he’s headed. When he  _does_ make the connection, however, it’s like he can’t get down the stairs fast enough.

One of the benefits of it being a quiet evening in the compound is that no one is there to catch him as he sneaks down to Basement-3. Otherwise known as the high-security storage area within the building, otherwise known as the place where the Avengers keeps the things that probably shouldn’t reach the hands of the public.

Bucky has clearance to enter, obviously. He places his palm on the reader beside the reinforced door, punches in his access code, lets FRIDAY run the retinal scan and voice recognition software and just like that, he’s in.

Steve had brought him here once, not too long after he’d moved into the compound. It’s a nifty little place, full of all kinds of toys he’d like to get his hands on, as well as several things he’d rather not. About a third of the stuff in the vault has a note saying something along the lines of ‘Do Not Tamper’ attached to it. The Hulkbuster armour is here, as is one of the prototypes of Steve’s shied.

Bucky isn’t interested in any of those toys, however, He heads towards the back of the room, towards a small wooden crate filled with fluorescent pink packing foam. After scooping some of the foam aside, Bucky shoves a hand in and roots around until his fingers close around cool glass. With a triumphant grin, he fishes out a medium-sized vial of Asgardian mead, which Thor left on his last visit.

Stuffing his treasure under his arm, Bucky puts the foam back into place as if it’d never been touched — although he doesn’t know why he bothers, really. FRIDAY will have a record of his visit and the place is bugged with cameras, anyhow. Still, Bucky’s always been taught to tidy up his messes and that’s what he’s doing now.

He leaves the vault and takes the stairs three at a time, bounding his way back to his room. Once inside, he kicks his bedroom door shut, then locks it, for good measure. Bucky grabs his tablet, heads into his bathroom and locks himself in there.

It’s pretty spacious, as far as bathrooms go. One would expect nothing less, in a compound built with Stark money. Bucky plops himself into his enormous bathtub, lets his head thump against the headrest, pops open the cork and takes a hefty swig.

The alcohol is powerful stuff — and it needs to be, in order to intoxicate a god, he muses. Like Steve, Bucky can’t get drunk because his metabolism’s too high. But, even an enhanced liver is no match for a drink as strong as this. He savours the feel of the mead as it travels down his throat, swirling down with a pleasant, welcoming burn. It’s accompanied by the loosening of the tension in Bucky’s body, the alcohol hitting him almost immediately, sending a pleasant buzz through his veins and making him feel like he’s unmoored, like someone’s cut the tether of his boat.

Without prompting, the memory of you and Steve cozying up to each other in the kitchen hits him again, a sudden flash of vibrant, all-too-bright colour in his consciousness. The vivid image makes Bucky wince.

It’s a scene that will forever be seared into the back of his head, he knows that. No amount of drink will chase away the dark sorrow threatening to consume him, but he takes another swig anyway, just to keep the demons at bay.

_God_  he wants you. No, more than that — he wants you to want  _him_ , wants you to love all the broken pieces of himself.

Bucky knows that that will never happen. He didn’t have a chance before and certainly doesn’t have a chance now, when you’re so clearly caught up in the torrent of Steve’s love. Steve is good. Steve is perfect. Steve has been through so much in his life and still has the capacity to love with all his heart; of course he deserves you.

It’s an odd kind of torture, watching you with him.

On the one hand, Bucky feels like he’s in sheer agony every time he sees you together. On the other hand, he feels strangely at peace, knowing that the two of you — the two people he cares most about — have found happiness in each other. It’s conflicting, it’s confusing and at this point, Bucky gives fuck-all about it because  _goddammit_  why can’t things be simple, for once in his life? Why can’t he get what he wants, for once in his life?

Because no one cares about what Bucky wants, that’s why. HYDRA didn’t care, the universe doesn’t care, so why would you?

Bucky brushes the back of his hand over his eyes and is surprised to find them a little wet.

_Weak, Barnes_ , he thinks dryly.

A thunderous crash draws him out of his gloomy downward spiral. He feels like he should care — this may be a sudden attack, after all — but if someone could kindly kill him where he lies, Bucky would be more than willing to go. He hears muttered curses, loud footsteps and then the sharp rap of knuckles against the bathroom door.

“Bucky?”

It’s Steve. Bucky groans internally. The punk means well, he knows, but Bucky just doesn’t need to see him now. More importantly, Bucky doesn’t need Steve to see  _him_ when he’s like this.

Steve knocks on the door again, more insistently this time. “Bucky? I know you’re in there. You okay, pal? FRIDAY— never mind. You okay, bud?”

Again, Bucky doesn’t answer. He knows he probably should, knows that his failure to answer is only making Steve more anxious, but truth be told, he just doesn’t have the strength to say “I’m fine”. He’s been pretending for too long. He can’t do it anymore.

Steve jiggles the handle and growls quietly when he finds that the door is locked. “Bucky, I’m gonna come in there, okay? Jus’ to make sure you’re okay,”. A moment of silence passes, then Steve throws himself against the door with a low grunt. The door, to its credit, shudders violently, but holds.

Even so, no door is a match to the enhanced strength of a super-soldier, so after a few more shoves, it finally gives way, coming off its hinges with a small flurry of dust. Steve bursts into the bathroom and looks around wildly, chest heaving and cheeks slightly flushed with exertion. When his eyes land on Bucky, he calms down, taking stock of the situation.

“Heya, Buck,” Steve murmurs, “Is it okay if I come over?”

Bucky shrugs indifferently. Steve accepts the unspoken invitation and timidly makes his way over to the bathtub, kneeling down beside it so that he is eye-level with Bucky.

“You wanna talk, pal?” Steve asks quietly. The concern is evident in his tone, yet he tries to keep his expression calm and neutral. With Steve in this position, Bucky’s eyes can’t help but be drawn to the movement of his rose-pink lips, the way the move so seamlessly as they shape the words that fall from Steve’s mouth. Is that the view that you had, just seconds before Steve leaned in and kissed you? Or did you reach up and pull him towards you?

How many times has he pressed his lips to yours? How many times has he tasted you in a way that Bucky was never privileged enough to enjoy? He can’t get the image of your lips out of his head now, perfect and oh-so-kissable. They are the epitome of a forbidden fruit; ripe and tempting, but never for him to touch.

_WHY?!_

Bucky snaps.

“You don’t know what it’s like!” he shouts suddenly, his words coming out a little slurred. Bucky glances at the hand still clutching the vial and is stunned to find that it is almost completely empty, nothing but half a mouthful still inside. Huh. No wonder he feels drunk. Bucky’s forgotten what it felt like to feel drunk, hasn’t had to deal with that issue for a long while.

Steve blinks, but otherwise shows no other outward response to Bucky’s outburst. “Don’t know what what’s like?”

“You don’t know how lucky y’are, Steve!” Bucky snaps, “To have her. To—to be together the way you want, to—,”

“Bucky what on earth are you talking about?” Steve asks, brows knitting together in confusion.  _God_ , Bucky’s half-tempted to slap him around, make him see sense.

“What do they taste like, Stevie?” Bucky continues, rolling over Steve’s words as if he’d never spoken. “Bet’cha they’re real sweet, huh? Fruity, or somethin’? Bet’cha they feel real nice and soft, yeah? Ya’ don’t know how lucky y’are to have her, Stevie, don’t know how good she is, how fuckin’ perfect she is, she’s a fuckin’—fuck, I don’t know! But she’s good and she deserves the world,”. Bucky knows that he should stop talking now, because with every word he lets slip, the deeper his grave becomes.

But he  _can’t_ stop, that’s the problem. The train is rolling down the hill in an uncontrollable plummet and there’s nothing he can do but hang on for the ride. Bucky doesn’t care anymore, at this point. After bottling his emotions for so long, it’s a relief to finally be able to get something out there. This is the closest that Bucky’s ever gotten to confessing his feelings about you to someone.

“What’re you talkin’ bout, Buck?” Steve breathes, before shaking his head decisively. “Never mind. You’re drunk, c’mon. Up,”.

“Fuck you, Steve,” Bucky growls halfheartedly, “You don’t get it, do ya? Stevie — ya gotta ‘ppreciate her, you hear me? Like—she’s the fuckin’ queen, or somethin’. You gotta do it, ‘cause I can’t. I  _can’t_ do it, so you gotta do it for me,”.

“Okay, Bucky,” Steve breathes, getting up onto his knees and moving to help Bucky out of the tub. “I will. C’mon, now,”.

He doesn’t get it. Steve doesn’t get it.

“Never mind,” Bucky grunts, batting away Steve’s hands. “M’fine. Forget about it. Forget everything I said. Go. Leave me alone,”.

“Buck—,”

“I said  _go_ , Rogers,” Bucky growls threateningly, not caring about the fact that Steve’s face visibly falls at his tone. Bucky’s pissed off at himself, at you, at the fucking  _universe_  and Steve’s the one unfortunate enough to have to deal with consequences. A part of him knows that he should feel remorseful and indeed, a part of him  _does_ want to take back the sentiment, but it’s there, it’s been said and there’s no going back now.

Recovering from his shock, Steve hardens his gaze and stands up, using his height to his advantage. Bucky could’ve laughed at the irony if he wasn’t so messed up; once upon a time, Steve Rogers had to stand on a crate if he wanted to pull off the same stunt. “Gimme the drink, Buck,” he says firmly, holding out his hand. There’s no anger in his tone, but when Bucky’s eyes flick to his neck, he can see the tension in his muscles, the way the vein is threatening to bulge out of his skin.

“Bucky,” Steve repeats, firmer this time.

With a heaving sigh, Bucky hands over the nearly-empty vial. “Now go, will ya? Leave me alone,” Bucky mutters, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against the cool wall.

He sense Steve hovering beside him, as if he has something to say, before the punk realises what’s good for him, turns on his heel and strides to the door. “I’ll—I’ll leave some water and some pills on your bedside, ‘kay? Not sure how much help they’ll be, but just take ‘em, yeah?”. When Bucky doesn’t answer, Steve sighs and leaves, leaving Bucky alone.

Leaving Bucky alone, like he’s doomed to forever be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	6. FIVE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky tries to take his mind off you. Things don’t go as planned.

Bucky Barnes is very much conscious of the fact that his grave has already been dug. He’s now playing a waiting game, just hanging around, holding onto his will to live by the thinnest of threads. He’ll stick around until the final nail in his coffin is hammered into place and then—well. Then his worries will be gone, won’t they?

The nail-biting suspense consumes his every moment, hovering in the back of his mind like a pesky fly. No matter how hard he tries to shove the fear away, it always comes swirling back, stronger than ever. It’s all he can do to wait.

So he waits.

And waits.

And — goddammit  _when_ is Steve going to come and talk to him?!

It’s been nearly two weeks since Bucky decided to drink himself stupid in his bathtub and pour his heart out to Steve Rogers, aka the world’s most clueless best friend. Although a tiny part of Bucky is clinging to the hope —  _hah_ , hope. What a far-fetched concept — that Steve did not pay attention to Bucky’s drunken ramblings and has no idea who Bucky was talking about, a significantly larger part of him knows Steve. In fact, Bucky knows Steve better than Steve knows himself, sometimes. And if Bucky knows anything about Steve, it is that the man is smarter than appearances would imply. It’s tough to pull a fast one on him.

Which means that Bucky’s pretty sure that Steve knows that he was talking about you. Oh, who is he kidding? He wasn’t just  _talking_ about you, he was fucking  _professing his love_  for you. Bucky was essentially laying bare his heart and soul, spilling them all over the bathroom floor in vivid shades of love-struck red.

Bucky remembers the paralysing terror that gripped his muscles when he woke up the next morning and recalled the events of the night before. His memory of those couple of hours are fuzzy at best, tinged with the warm glow of alcohol-induced haziness, but he remembers the general gist of what was said and knows that it’s as convicting a piece of evidence as any. There’s no two ways about it; Bucky was referring to you.

Steve knows that Bucky has feelings for his girl.

What Bucky doesn’t know is why on earth Steve hasn’t approached him about it. It’s been over two weeks since the bathroom incident. In that time, Steve has carried on as normal, acting like nothing’s wrong between them. He’s behaving as if nothing’s changed, like everything’s right in the world. Then again, maybe Bucky’s just reading too much into the situation.

But because Steve has been going on with business-as-usual, he’s been dragging Bucky to the gym and out on runs at any given opportunity, trying to spend time together. Of course, Bucky wants to do anything  _but_ spend time with Steve — because really, why would he put himself through the torment of scrutinising every second, wondering when Steve will finally confront him — but he knows that avoiding Steve would come across as overly suspicious. Hence, although Bucky would much prefer hiding out in his room or some other, equally private and Steve-free place, he forces himself to plaster on fake smile after fake smile, laughing and swaggering around the place like nothing’s fucked up about him.

He’s terrified of what might happen if he were to stop pretending.

Maybe Steve wants  _Bucky_ to broach the topic. Or maybe, Steve is okay with sweeping the issue under the rug, pretending that it never happened, attributing it all to the looseness of tongue that comes from drinking a tad too much Asgardian mead. Bucky wouldn’t put that past him; in fact, pretending like it never happened in order to preserve Bucky’s pride sounds  _exactly_  like the kind of self-sacrificing thing that Steve Rogers would do.

Ah crap. He’s overthinking again.

Bucky is fully aware that he could put himself out of his misery if he just plucked up the courage and actually just  _talked_ to Steve, but therein lies the issue. Bucky doesn’t have courage. No matter what people say about him — he’s a coward at heart. Too afraid to tell you that he loved you and now, too afraid to come clean with Steve and potentially lose the trust of the only person who understands him in this strange new world.

Bucky wonders about a lot of things, but a thought that keeps on popping up is how Steve would react. Would he end his relationship with you so that Bucky could take his place? The two of you are pretty serious, so it’s a highly unlikely scenario, but still.

He’d like to think that there’s a chance.

He doesn’t deserve you, but Bucky wants you all the same. He doesn’t deserve you, but he  _wants_ to deserve you, wants to work his ass off to show you how much he cares. It’s conflicting, it’s confusing and it’s maddening enough that sometimes, all Bucky wants to do is ram his head against a wall. Several times. At full, no-holding-back, super-strength force. He’d bang his head several times, knock the thoughts of his head — or, y’know, knock himself out. Whichever came first.

It’s these kinds of thoughts that keep him up at night.

Bucky sighs heavily as he rolls onto his side and checks the clock he keeps on his bedside table. Seven minutes past five in the morning is an acceptable time to get up, no?  To be fair, he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before — three hours, at a stretch — but then again, when does he ever get more than four hours of sleep a night, anyway? Nowadays, thoughts of you, thoughts of Steve and worries about his life in general are enough fodder for his brain to chew over, keeping him tossing and turning well into the quiet hours of the morning.

He needs a distraction.

A distraction of a particular kind. Bucky knows that it’d only be a temporary fix, will only take his mind off the hell that his life has become — take his mind off  _you_  — for a couple of hours if he’s lucky, but fuck. He needs it. He needs a break from the raucous cacophony that is the inside of his head.

With a weary sigh, Bucky heaves himself out of bed, pulls on a pair of sweatpants and yesterday’s t-shirt, then trudges out to the into the common area in search of her. If he’s lucky, she’ll be here.

Natasha never was one for sleep.

Sure enough, when Bucky enters the spacious living room that functions as the compound’s main lounge area, he finds Natasha curled up on the plush armchair in the corner, mug of coffee in one hand, legs tucked underneath her body and a book propped up on the armrest of her chair. She’s dressed in slim-fit black jeans and a striped grey hoodie, with a splash of red on her lips to match the fiery redness of her hair. It’s not uncommon for him to find her like this most mornings. The two of them hardly ever sleep through the night — in fact, Bucky’s fairly certain that she sustains herself entirely on power naps throughout the day — so they’ve developed a kind of amiable, if rather silent, morning routine around each other.

Bucky knows that she’s heard him come in, so that fact that she’s chosen to not acknowledge him is entirely on purpose. He flops into the the two-seater sofa directly opposite her and clears his throat.

“Natasha?”

Her gaze flicks up sharply, coming to rest on him. Her eyes narrow almost imperceptibly as she studies him for all of two seconds, makes some sort of judgement in her mind and decides that Bucky is worth her attention. She lifts her mug to her cherry-red lips, poised to take a sip. Before she does, though, she arches an eyebrow inquisitively, as if to say  _go on, I’m listening_.

Bucky licks his lips. “I need a favour,” he admits.

She makes a thoughtful humming noise, sips her coffee, then sets her mug and book down on the decorative side table to her left.

“Tell me more,” she replies.

———————

Amy is nice, by most people’s standards. More then nice, even. She’s got bleached-blonde hair that brushes her shoulders, a charming but not overtly-memorable face and a killer body, highlighted by the skin-tight blue velvet dress she’s wearing. Amy is kind enough to chuckle at Bucky’s half-hearted attempts at humour and is interesting enough to keep the conversation flowing easily.

He doesn’t know much about her background, only the barest details that Natasha thought would be useful to him. Bucky knows that she’s ex-SHIELD, went with Natasha on a couple of missions whilst the two were based in DC. Her skill-set meant that she got snatched up by a private security firm the moment SHIELD ceased to exist and now works as a bodyguard for high-level female clients. To be honest, Bucky doesn’t give a flying fuck about her background. All he cares about is the fact that she’s pretty, she’s sweet and she’s almost enough to take his mind off you.

Almost.

The waiter comes by at that moment, bottle of fancy red wine in one hand. He tops up their glasses and asks if everything’s alright.

“We’re fine, thank you,” Amy says, flashing him a polite smile.

She’s got nice teeth, Bucky notices absentmindedly. Takes care of her oral hygiene, he supposes. Good to know, given the fact that he’s probably going to get up-close-and-personal with her teeth in under an hour.

Sure, a part of him — the last remnants of James Buchanan Barnes, ladies-man of the 1930s — does feel a twinge of guilt at the thought of what tonight means. He’d been explicit with Natasha. He’d told her that he wanted a girl with a nice enough personality that he could stand having dinner with, and a nice enough body for him to fuck his way through his grief. It’s terrible of him, he knows this, but goddammit, how else is he supposed to give himself a break from thoughts of you?

To his credit, Bucky knows that Amy is under no illusions about what this evening is about. They’re going through the notions of dinner at a respectable restaurant just to make Bucky feel a little less terrible about himself; an attempt to pretend that chivalry is still alive and thriving. In reality, he and Amy know exactly where this night is headed: to her apartment. Possibly her bed, although Bucky’s not picky about where they do it. This is a fuck-date, through and through.

Bucky shifts in his seat and readjusts the rolled-up sleeves of his white dress shirt. Amy catches him fidgeting and raises one perfectly-manicured eyebrow.

“D’you wanna stay for dessert, or would you rather have something at my place?” she asks, batting her eyelashes suggestively.

Bucky chuckles, decides to play along with her game. “What kinda dessert are you offering, ma’am?”

Amy laughs softly as she pushes around the remains of her pasta with her fork. “Well…I was thinking…something sweet?”

“I like sweet,” Bucky murmurs, spooning the last of his mushroom risotto into his mouth.

“Mmm, maybe we could even have dessert in bed,”.

“Now you’re talking my language,” Bucky chuckles, waggling his eyebrows knowingly. The corner of her lips crooks up into a half-smile. It’s settled, then. Bucky signals to the waiter, pays for the bill, then leads Amy out of the restaurant with a hand resting on the small of her back.

The cab ride to her apartment is blissfully short, no more than ten minutes. Amy drapes her body against Bucky’s side; a pleasant source of warmth. She keeps her hand on his thigh, idly stroking up and down the inner seam of his dark skinny jeans, starting from the inside on his knee and stopping just a fraction short of where his dick is. He knows she’s doing it on purpose, trying to rile him up and  _boy_ does it work.

Bucky exits the cab with his leather jacket folded over one arm and strategically held in front of his body, to hide the semi he’s got going on. He catches Amy’s eyes flickering over him, the tiny smirk on her lips; she’s clearly aware of the effect she’s having on him.

She knows what she’s doing when she exists the elevator first, walking a few steps of Bucky so that he can admire the sinuous curve of her back and the gentle swish in her hips as she walks down the corridor to her place. Bucky knows that she knows that he’s watching, knows that she’s probably exaggerating the sway of her hips for his benefit, but damn, she looks good in those heels. His dick presses up a little bit harder against the fly of his jeans.

Her apartment is neat and nondescript, largely devoid of any kind of personalised touches. It’s the home of someone who’s hardly ever home, lacking the decor and finishing touches that give a place a lived-in feel. Bucky kicks the door shut behind him and allows himself to be pressed to the wall. Amy leans in close, but pauses a hair’s breadth away from his lips, giving him one last chance for him to back out.

The room stills. Tension is fraught in the air. She’s close enough that Bucky can feel her hair tickling his stubbled cheek, can feel the warmth of her breath against his lips every time she exhales.

Tonight is not about backing out.

Bucky surges forward, cupping the back of her neck with his flesh hand as he crushes their lips together. Amy responds in kind, immediately catching onto the fact that tonight is not the night for gentle touches and tender caresses. Bucky wants it rough, wants it tinted with the red-hot filter of pain. He nips at her bottom lip and, when she moans heatedly, slips his tongue into her mouth, flicking it around teasingly. Amy huffs in frustration and fists her hands into the front of his shirt, using her grip to bodily yank him over to her sofa.

She pushes Bucky into the cushions and stands between his spread thighs. Bucky runs his hands up the backs of her legs, slipping them underneath her skirt and letting them rest just below the swell of her ass. Her hair is fluffy and slightly disheveled, eyes heavy-lidded and pupils blown with desire. She kicks her heels off then climbs into Bucky’s lap, shins bracketing the outsides of his thighs.

Amy’s close enough that Bucky can feel the heat radiating off her like a furnace. He leans into her touch as she trails her fingers down his cheek, humming in approval as she scratches her nails against the skin behind his ear. Amy licks her bottom lip coquettishly, cocks her head to the side and comes in close, brushing her lips against Bucky’s own.

Bucky feels like he’s been starved of touch as of late, so he lets his hands roam wherever they may go; kneading her ass, smoothing over her hips and trailing up her back. Amy’s nimble fingers begin to undo the buttons of his shirt as she presses her lips to his more insistently, deepening the kiss. Bucky closes his eyes and lets her tongue into his mouth, tries to lose himself in the moment, attempts to make the dissonant racket inside his head quieten down to ambient white noise.

As is to be expected, he fails.

Kissing Amy, drinking in her taste, feeling her up is all well and good but it’s not…it’s not you. It’s wrong. It’s all wrong, doing this. Bucky is conflicted. Her smell is wrong. It’s too flowery, too sweet, a far cry from the fresh, crisp scent of your skin. Perhaps that’s a good thing, he tells himself. But as much as Bucky tries to convince his mind that this is what he needs, he knows that in reality, he’s just lying to himself.

He doesn’t need Amy.

It’s not Amy’s laugh that makes his heart thrum a little bit faster. It’s not Amy’s touch that makes Bucky feel complete. It’s not Amy’s eyes that calm the storm that rages inside him.

He doesn’t need Amy. He needs you.

There’s a sinking feeling settling into the pit of his stomach, like someone’s dropped an anchor and is bringing tonight’s events to their premature end. With much reluctance and a heaving sigh, Bucky pushes hard against Amy’s shoulders and forces her to sit back in his lap.

“What’s wrong?” she asks breathlessly, raking her fingers through her hair to push it out of her face.

Bucky sighs again, smiles apologetically and scratches at his chin. “I—I’m sorry. I can’t do…this,” he mutters, using one hand to gesture in vague circles between them. “It’s not you…it’s me,” he says immediately, “Sorry. I—you’ve been great, but I just…can’t. M’sorry,”.

He braces himself internally for the slap. The rejection, disdain and disappointment. He is surprised when it does not come.

“There’s someone else, huh?” Amy murmurs, cocking her head to one side as her understanding dawns on her expression.

Bucky winces. “Um..kind of? I—yeah. It’s…it’s real complicated,”.

Amy exhales a breath of air in a rapid whoosh, nodding her head as she makes a disappointed clucking sound with her tongue. “Well. I kinda knew. I was expecting this, if I’m honest,”.

Bucky’s gaze snaps towards her. “You what?”

Amy shrugs. “Kinda had an inkling the moment I sat down at that table, Barnes. You weren’t in the right headspace for a hookup. Been reading the bad vibes off you this entire night — s’ kinda what I’m paid to do,” she says.

“Damn it,” Bucky grumbles, “I really  _was_ making an effort,”.

“Really?” Amy asks, the teasing lilt returning to her voice. “You call that makin’ an effort? You were a terrible kisser,”.

“Hey!” Bucky protests.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” Amy chuckles, petting his cheek. “No, it’s fine, I was prepared for this to happen, so I’m not that disappointed, really,”

“Sorry,” Bucky says again; quieter, more sincerely this time.

She smiles gently, rests her hand against the side of his neck. “Don’t be sorry. I get it. I hope things work out for you, Bucky,”.

The right side of his lips twitches in a wan attempt at a smile. “Me too,” he breathes. Amy appraises him for a moment longer, then swings her legs off him and throws herself onto her couch, sprawling ungracefully across the empty space.

She lifts her head up slightly to look at him. “D’you wanna stay, or…?”

Bucky shakes his head ruefully as he does up the top buttons on his shirt and looks around for where his jacket’s been discarded. “I…think I’ll be heading back now, if it’s all the same to you,” he tells her.

Amy waves her hand dismissively, “Eh, the new season of Stranger Things is out, and I need to catch up on that anyway. It’s no big deal, for me,”. Bucky mentally thanks Amy for being so cool with all this. He needs to tell Nat to send her a thank-you present of some sort. Bucky stands up and retrieves his jacket from where it’s been dropped on the floor. He bunches it up in both hands as he chews on his lip and stands awkwardly in her entrance hallway.

“Something wrong?” Amy calls.

“This was…it was nice, Amy,” Bucky says, shooting her a half-smile, “I had fun, I really did. I’m sorry I…yeah. this was fun,”.

“It was,” she agrees, “I’m sorry I wasn’t enough to take your mind off whoever this was. Must be one hell of a crush you got there, Barnes; most men find me irresistible when I’m grinding in their laps,”.

“I will admit, you almost had me, at one point,” Bucky laughs, as he shrugs on his jacket.

“Damn. I’m losing my touch,” she mutters.

Bucky chuckles as he turns the handle of her door. “Bye, Amy. Thanks for—everything,”.

“It was a pleasure. Have a good night, Bucky,”.

———————

It’s a clear night, so Bucky decides to get off the train a few stops early and walk the rest of the way to the compound. His rationale is that the crisp, slightly chilly night air will help to clear his mind.

He’ll take anything that has even the slightest chance of clearing his mind, at this stage.

Bucky can’t stop thinking about you. He’s in love and he’s suffering as a result. Every thought he has of you is bittersweet; you are his pleasure and his sole source of pain, his light and the very reason for the darkness threatening to consume him.

Bucky’s mind is a mess of emotions right now. His pissed off with himself, envious of Steve, frustrated with the universe and generally fed-up with how shit his life has become. He knows that the two of you aren’t together — you were never together in the first place — so he has no  _right_ to feel like this. Why should he feel protective and jealous and angered in a way that has his hands clenching into tightly-balled fists? Bucky has no right to feel this way,  _especially_ not when he factors Steve into the equation, but none of that — none of the rationalising of what is right and wrong and should and shouldn’t be — changes the fact that he  _does_ feel.

He feels too much.

Tonight was a bust. Bucky knows that he’s fully entitled to sleep with another woman. There’s no way you could’ve held that against him, what with you being in a committed relationship with Steve, and all. Even so, Bucky can’t help but feel that by sleeping with Amy, he would’ve been cheating on you, in some way. It’s utterly irrational, but fucking Amy would’ve felt dirty and sinful in all the wrong ways, like he’d be betraying your trust, somehow. He knows that that thought is complete nonsense, but it’s one that he can’t ignore.

That seems to be the recurring theme, Bucky notes. He knows. He knows this, he knows that, but the fact is, he  _knows_. And yet, no matter what the logical part of his brain is telling him to do, Bucky never seems to be able to listen to it. It seems that his body is hard-wired to follow the instincts of his love-stricken heart, and look where that’s taken him.

In a way, he’s glad of the way the night’s turned out. Amy doesn’t deserve to be used that way, as if she were a means to an end. She’s more than just a temporary patch-up for a problem that has no solution. Bucky has fucked up a lot in recent weeks; he doesn’t need to go out of his way to make yet another mistake.

His feet have carried him to the gates of the compound without him even realising where he was going. Bucky taps his access code into the panel, lets FRIDAY scan his thumbprint and then makes his way up the gravel drive once the gate lets him through.

It’s just after midnight when he slips through the front door, so Bucky’s pretty surprised when he sees that the hallway light is still on. Most of the lights in the compound are operated via sensors, with FRIDAY automatically turning them off when no one’s in the room. Bucky catches the low thud of footsteps and—

—his breath catches in his throat.

“Heya, Bucky,” you chirp. You’re dressed in a pair of loose flannel pyjama pants and one of Steve’s t-shirts. A glass of water is in your hand.

“Hey,” Bucky croaks. God. How do you manage to make fucking  _pyjamas_ look sexy?

“Nat told me you went out tonight. Had fun?” you ask, eyes quickly taking in his outfit.

“Umm…yeah, it was okay, I guess,” Bucky murmurs distractedly, “Not the best night of my life,”.

“Hmm, well…” you let your voice trail off as you glance down the corridor, “I—um..I better…Steve’s waiting, I think,”.

Bucky’s eyes widen a fraction before he catches himself. “Oh. Yeah, yeah, sorry—didn’t mean to keep you,”.

“No, it’s fine!” you assure him, as you shuffle down the corridor, towards your room. “G’night, Bucky,”.

“Night,” Bucky replies.

Bucky doesn’t bother to add the ‘good’ because there’s nothing good about tonight. Not for him, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to share this chapter on [tumblr!](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/167477556670/a-messed-up-place-five/)


	7. SIX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky realises that he has well and truly lost his chance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saying this ahead of time: I AM SO SORRY.
> 
> Slight time-jump between this and the last chapter. Part of this chapter was inspired by [this song](https://youtu.be/nwIQEp7bxZE/), which I highly recommend you listen to, as it’s quite an accurate representation of Bucky’s feelings (but listen to it after you’ve read the chapter, otherwise, it gives the whole chapter away, lol)
> 
> Also, I have no clue what I’m talking about with the drugs bullshit. Also, also: I have a rough timeline for this series, but it’s not completely solidified. So, if you spot a continuity error, do let me know.

He supposes that he should have expected this. He’s been lucky to get this far  _without_ having to do this, really.

Nearly a whole three months have passed without Bucky needing to go on a mission with you. The last one had been about two weeks before you and Bucky ended your arrangement, and even then, Sam and Wanda had tagged along. Bucky can’t remember the last time he was on a mission with you and you alone.

In a way, he’s glad of that — the fact that he hasn’t had to spend more time with you than is strictly necessary. Bucky’s been avoiding you and Steve as much as he can without raising suspicions. By this point, he’s gotten over the initial stages of his grief — can it even be called grief? — at losing you, but it still hurts. His life has just transitioned into a new kind of normal.

But of course, his luck couldn’t have lasted forever.

The intel came through less than 48 hours ago. Nova, a drug cartel known for smuggling heroin across South and Southeast Asia have apparently been bribed to sell a particularly large load of the substance. According to the team’s intelligence network, this particular batch of heroin has been contaminated with traces of radioactive material and is therefore not safe for human consumption. Well. Heroin  _in general_ is not safe for human consumption, but this batch is  _especially_ unsafe. Primary mission objective, therefore, is to prevent as much of this drug from entering the market as possible.

Beyond that, though, Nova is known to have strong ties with the South Asian human trafficking ring, which has a global reputation for supplying live human subjects to questionable laboratories all over the world, in order for human testing to be performed. The team have been trying to infiltrate their system for several months, now; this could be the breakthrough they’ve been searching for.

Bucky and Y/N thus have a relatively simple mission ahead of them, as far as objectives go. Because Nova targets a particular kind of clientele — the wealthy and elite, marketing their heroin as being ‘premium’, top of the line stuff — the two of you will be posing as a couple interested in buying some of their drug. Couples, for whatever reason, seem to be their preferred customers. In the process, the two of you need to find a way of decontaminating or disposing of the shipment, whilst also worming your way into the human trafficking side of things, perhaps by mentioning an interest in buying some specimens in order to carry out testing back home.

Natasha would have been Bucky’s first choice partner for this mission; she’s the one with countless years of experience under her belt. Moreover, he’s worked with her before, seen how flawlessly she can pull off any role, no matter how different it may be to her true self. Unfortunately, Natasha is currently occupied in Berlin, following up a lead about the German government developing military-grade weapons using Chitauri tech. God knows how they got their hands on  _that_.

So with Natasha out of the picture, Bucky’s next choice would have been Steve, except — well, posing as a  _couple_ would have been a tad more difficult. Not that Bucky’s got any reservations about parading around as a gay man in the name of the mission, but, well. Malaysia’s not exactly the most accepting of countries when it comes to that sort of thing. Besides, the punk’s not cut out for espionage. In fact, Bucky would even go as far as to say that he’s completely hopeless at it.

Steve’s idea of ‘going incognito’ is a baseball cap and  _sunglasses,_ for goodness’ sake.

And, since everyone else is either occupied with another project, or simply lacks the skill-set required for this particular type of mission, Bucky had no choice but to go on it with you posing as his wife.

The two of you have just made it to your hotel. You’re at the reception desk, checking in. Bucky is slouched in a velvet-upholstered armchair, guarding the luggage. He scrunches his nose and itches the back of his neck. The damn face veil makes for a good disguise, but fuck if he isn’t excited to take it off.

In order to maintain your role as a well-to-do couple, you and Bucky are staying in an upscale hotel in the centre of Kuala Lumpur. The lobby is massive, all double-ceilings, chandeliers, and sparkling marble floors. The whole place practically  _exudes_ lavishness from every crevice. It’s not the ideal place to bunk in — not enough escape routes, for one thing — but he can’t be picky when he’s got pretences to keep up.

He looks up as you cheerily thank the crisply-dressed receptionist and make your way over to him. With his eyes hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses, Bucky allows his gaze to slowly drag up your body. Embodying the look of a classy business woman, you’re dressed in a pair of black cigarette trousers and a white blouse, a relaxed-fit blazer thrown on top. The face veil you have on is projecting the image of a generic ‘pretty girl’ and to complete the ensemble, you’ve got on a black, curly-hair wig, which you’ve tied into a loose ponytail.

“Ready to go?” you ask, picking up your duffel bag and hooking it over your shoulder. “Apparently we’ve got a nice view,” you say, waving the key card in front of his face.

The action causes the stunning diamond ring on your left hand to glint in the sunlight streaming through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows. Bucky wishes the could say that that ring is only there for the sake of the mission.

He can’t, though. That’s not the truth.

The truth is that that ring is one-hundred percent genuine. And Bucky wasn’t the one to give it to you.

—————————

Bucky sprawls out onto the slightly-damp grass after his sprint, cheeks flushed and chest rising and falling with each pant. He yanks up the hem of his t-shirt and uses it to wipe the worst of the sweat off his brow. Heavy footfalls thunder past him and moments later, his view of the sun is blocked by a shadow that looms above him.

“You cheated,” Steve accuses, eyes narrowing to angry slits. Bucky grins.

“Would’a beaten you, even if I hadn’t,” he replies, “You said you wanted to race me. You never said I couldn’t push you into a ditch along the way,”.

“It’s called fair play!” Steve cries in frustration, throwing his hands into the air.

“Dunno if you’ve noticed, Stevie,” Bucky says solemnly, folding his hands together, “But the world ain’t exactly a fair place,”. Steve shakes his head in mock annoyance, chuckling dryly.

“Aww, c’mon, Steve, don’t be sore with me,” Bucky whines, reaching out to tug on the ankle of Steve’s joggers. “Come down here and enjoy the sun. It’s real nice,”.

Steve mutters darkly under his breath but eventually gives into Bucky’s request. He sits down beside Bucky —sighing loudly as he does so — with his legs outstretched and his palms planted behind him, face tilted towards the sun. His foot is near Bucky’s shoulder, so Bucky takes the liberty of poking his ankle a few times, just to see what kind of reaction that gets him. Steve grunts, then kicks Bucky gently with his foot, clearly not amused. Bucky snorts, but moves his hand away, pillowing it under his head.

A moment of companionable silence passes. This is probably the happiest Bucky’s been in — a long time. Too long. Much longer than he’d like to admit.

“Bucky?” Steve asks, breaking their peaceful bubble. His voice is quiet, tentative.

“Yeah?”

“Can I…talk to you about something?”

There’s an undertone to Steve’s voice that raises Bucky’s hackles, sets his nerves on edge. His blood starts to rush a little faster through his veins. Somehow, a part of him just  _knows_ what Steve’s going to say.  _This is it_ , he tells himself,  _this is where he calls you out_.

“Sure,” Bucky says, voice a little more cautious that he wants it to be.

Steve sits up straighter, crosses his legs and starts to pick at the grass in front of him. “Listen, I—you remember the night you got drunk?”

Bucky stiffens. His heart stops. Worst-case scenarios are flashing through his head at a million miles an hour. He feels like his chest is collapsing in on itself, ribs constricting around his lungs. He can’t catch a breath—

“You—you remember that?” he croaks out.

Steve smiles tiredly. “Look, pal, I—I know you were talking about her,”.

Bucky swallows thickly, tamping down the wave of nausea rolling through his system. “Steve, I—,”

Steve holds a hand out to stop him. “Just listen for a sec, ‘kay? I know you were talking about her, and…and I already had a feeling, by that point. I kinda thought that you might like her,” he admits.

Bucky is all sorts of confused right now.

“Steve, I—what?” he says, completely at a loss for words. “I—you—I thought you didn’t get me—,”

“Pal, you  _were_  pretty wasted,” Steve says wryly, “But even shit-faced, I could make out what you were talking about,”.

With a heavy grunt, Bucky heaves himself up, crosses his legs and situates himself in front of Steve. Clearly, they are about to have a Talk™, and those kinds of talks should be had face-to-face (if one is brave enough to manage it), and sitting down.

“Okay, why’re you bringing this up now?” Bucky asks tersely, “Why now, Steve? Because, in case you haven’t noticed, it’s been nearly two months since that night and I’ve been going out of my goddamn mind with—,”

“I know, I know,” Steve says, holding both hands up in surrender, “I’m an idiot, I shouldn’t have left it so long. I should’a…come to you a long time ago,”.

Bucky huffs indignantly. “Finally. Some sense has gotten through that thick skull a’ yours,”.

Steve cracks a weak half-smile.

“But Steve,” Bucky continues, wringing his hands agitatedly, “I—seriously, you’re telling me that you’ve  _known_  all this time? You’ve…I’ve been going crazy wondering if—if you were mad, or upset or…” Bucky lets his voice trail off in his uncertainty, his eyes trained on Steve’s face like a hawk, tracking even the minutest change in his expression.

“I’m an idiot, I know,” Steve repeats morosely, plucking out a blade of grass and twisting it around the tip of his index finger. “I didn’t…know if you wanted me ta’ bring it up, that’s why. You seemed so…upset about it, so I didn’t wanna push you, if you didn’t wanna talk about it, I guess,”.

“So why now?” Bucky repeats, crossing his arms in front of his chest and tipping his chin up in silent challenge. “Why’re you bringing it up now?”

“Because I love her, Bucky,” Steve says carefully, keeping his eyes trained on the mud-caked soles of his shoes. “I love Y/N, but I also love you, and I don’t wanna go on hurting your feelings,”. As he finishes talking, Steve lifts his eyes to meet Bucky’s stare.

_There_ , says Bucky’s inner voice,  _now’s your chance._

Steve has given Bucky the opening that he’s been looking for all this while. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity has just about fallen into his lap. The words hang unspoken between them, but Bucky knows without a shadow of doubt that if he admitted to the fact that he still has feelings for you, Steve would take it all in stride.

But  _can_  he? Can he do that to Steve? Can Bucky live with himself, knowing that he obtained his happiness by depriving Steve of his?

“Nah, pal,” Bucky says, shooting him a small smile, “I’m over her now, it’s been…what? Over two months since that night, right?”

“Yeah, but—,”

“M’over her, now,” Bucky says, injecting every ounce of authenticity he can into his words, “Really, Stevie, I am. I mean, yeah, I had a crush on her for a while but now it’s…gone,”.

It’s a lie, a blatant, outright lie. If anything, Bucky’s feelings for you have only intensified with time.

Does Steve need to know about that, though? Of course not.

Steve arches an eyebrow, still not entirely convinced. “Bucky,” he says, tone all gentle and patient, “Really, if…if you do, you can tell me, you know that, right? M’not gonna…m’not gonna be mad or upset or nothin’ like that, I just wanna know,”.

Bucky squares his shoulders and looks Steve dead in the eye. “You deaf or somethin’? I’m telling ya’, Stevie, I don’t got feelings for her no more, I really don’t,”. His stomach contorts itself into uncomfortable knots at the untruth, but by this point, Bucky’s buried himself so far deep under a pile of them, what difference does another make?

Steve narrows his eyes in suspicion, but doesn’t press the issue any further. A moment of tense silence slips by.

“Then…can I ask you for some advice?” Steve asks quietly, “If…I…y’know what, nevermind,”.

Bucky’s curiosity is piqued. “Hey, no — tell me!” Bucky protests, “You gotta tell me, c’mon,”.

Steve shakes his head, huffs out a dry laugh. “Nah, it’s…s’ too much after…that,” he says, waving his hand in vague circles.

“It’s about Y/N?”

Steve nods, chewing on his bottom lip in the way he does when he’s nervous. His eyes flick up for a brief moment, catching Bucky’s own.

“I’mgonnaaskhertomarryme,” Steve blurts, the words coming out in a sudden rush, all spoken in one exhale.

Bucky blinks, dumbstruck. He’s pretty sure he caught what Steve’s just admitted to, but just to be sure, he says “Stevie? Could you uh…repeat that? At, like, half-speed?”

Steve swallows. “I’m, uhh…I want to ask Y/N to marry me,”.

“You’re gonna propose to her?” Bucky says slowly, the gears in his brain scrambling to make sense of the situation.

“Yes,” Steve says, tone firm and resolute, as if he’s made his mind up already. Knowing Steve, he probably has.

“Steve, isn’t it…I dunno, a bit soon? It’s only been a couple’a months, right?” Bucky says, throat going uncharacteristically dry because the reality of Steve’s words is now sinking in. He bites his tongue, willing himself to not say what he really means:  _It’s too soon, Steve. I haven’t had my chance. I have’t had time to show her that I can be_ good _._

Steve’s expression visibly falls, shoulders sagging in defeat. “You think it’s a bad idea,” he sighs.

Bucky catches himself quickly. “No, no!” he splutters, “No, Steve, I— _Christ_ , you just surprised me, is all! ‘Course I think you should!”

It’s not technically a lie. It’s…well. It’s complicated. Half of Bucky thinks that Steve is perhaps jumping into things a tad too fast, but the other half of Bucky thinks that life is too short — even for enhanced individuals — to be sitting around, waiting for the good things to come to you. Bucky as a whole wishes that Steve would back down, just so he can have even the  _slightest_ chance at winning your heart. But — he’s had chances before and not taken them, why would he do so now?

Oh, can he have a do-over of this life? Why did it have to end up so complicated?

“Bucky?” Steve asks, resting his hand on Bucky’s thigh and drawing Bucky out of his thoughts.

“Just…wow, Stevie,” Bucky says, coaxing his lips into a smile and praying to the dear lord above that Steve won’t see through the widening cracks in his facade. “M’so happy for you,”.

Steve, the punk, ducks his head in embarrassment, the tips of his ears turning a little pink. “Yeah, well. Haven’t asked her yet,” he mutters.

Maybe Steve’s oblivious, wrapped up in his own joy and completely blinded by his love for you. Or maybe, Steve is not actually as smart as Bucky once thought. Whatever the case, Bucky thinks it’s a miracle that he’s gotten this far into the conversation without Steve calling him out, because Bucky’s pretty sure that his pain is written all over his face, plainly apparent in his body language.

“Don’t worry, pal,” Bucky murmurs, “She’s gonna say yes,”.

_But a part of me doesn’t want her to._

—————————

The hotel room is swanky. There is indeed, a nice view of the KL city skyline out of their enormous windows, and as a bonus, the fire-escape stairwell is accessible via the bathroom window. You can never have too many getaway options on hand. They’re paying for this hotel out of Stark’s bank account, so this splurge is mostly to keep up with the appearance of the two of you being a wealthy couple. It’s more of a suite than a room, really; the front door opens up to a small living room with an adjoining kitchenette, and the bedroom is through a doorway beside the sofa. There’s an ensuite with a massive shower that Bucky is just dying to test out.

Bucky dumps his bag at the foot of the bed, the flops face down onto the pristine white sheets, moaning in contentment as his body sinks into the marshmallowy softness of the mattress. He reaches for the switch behind his right ear, switches off the face veil, then peels it off his skin and tosses it across the room. The trained soldier inside him is telling him to get out of bed and sweep the room for bugs, but fuck, this bed is way too comfortable to get out of.

“Hey Bucky?” you call, raising your voice so that he can hear you from the living room.

“Mmm?”

“I’m just gonna give Steve a quick call, ‘kay? Just to check in?”

“Go ahead,” Bucky replies, his voice coming out muffled due to the thick duvet.

—————————

“Hey Bucky?”

“Mmm?”

Bucky looks up from his tablet, holding his hand above his eyes to shield them from the glare of the sun. Earlier that afternoon, he’d decided to take himself out of the restricting confines of his room and come to sit in the back garden for a while. Stark had built a little patio area there, complete with fancy outdoor furniture. Bucky is currently relaxing in one of the swinging chairs.

You’re standing off to Bucky’s right, your hands held behind your back. Your body is haloed by the burnt orange glow of the sunset; it’s quite a breathtaking image, actually, spoiled only by the tenseness lingering in the air.

Bucky has a feeling he knows what you’re going to say.

“Yeah, Y/N? What’s up?” he prompts, when it’s clear that you’re unwilling to be the first to speak. He switches off his tablet and tucks it beside him.

“I—um. Is it okay if I sit down?” you ask nervously.

Bucky scoots a little to the left, then gestures to the newly vacated space. You gingerly perch on the swing, back ram-rod straight, your hands shoved into the front pocket of your navy blue hoodie. You’re deep in thought, staring intensely at the grass in front of the swing chair. Bucky allows himself a moment to admire the curve of your jaw and the elegant column of your neck.

The suspense is starting to get to him, though. “Y/N?” Bucky asks softly, “What’s up?”

“Can you keep a secret?” you ask tightly, sparing him a glance out of the corner of your eye.

“Of course,” Bucky says, without a moment’s hesitation. Lord knows that he’s been keeping a hell of a lot of them, for the past couple of months. More than is strictly healthy, if he’s honest with himself.

“I—um,” you start, your voice thick and a little scratchy. You swallow audibly, before turning to look Bucky in the eye. His breathing catches and his heart races a tiny bit faster — out of dread, anticipation and fear.

“Steve…asked me to marry him. I—I said yes. I—we’re engaged. You’re…the first person to know,”.

Bucky’s mind is simultaneously blank and all-too-loud. He clenches his jaw and rages an internal battle with himself, fighting to hold back the tears stinging the backs of his eyelids. He’s been expecting this. The anticipation has been eating away at the last shreds his of sanity ever since Steve told him that he wanted to marry you.

Every.

Single.

Night since that day, Bucky has been harshly jolted from his sleep by the vision of you in white, walking down the aisle like an angelic deity floating on clouds. The more he tries to steer his mind to other avenues of thinking, the more he finds himself nervously waiting for you to tell him the good — the bad? — news. To slam the door in his face, as it were, making it undoubtedly clear that Bucky has no chance with you.

_That’s it, then,_ he thinks. There’s an unyielding sense of finality to the situation. His chance is well and truly gone.

“Bucky?” you ask worriedly, a small line appearing in the middle of your brow.

Bucky swallows, runs his flesh hand through his unkempt hair. “I—wow, Y/N, that’s amazing!” Bucky cries, trying to muster up as much enthusiasm and excitement as he can. It takes no small amount of effort on his part, pretending that he’s happy when in reality, he’s anything but. Bucky’s so exhausted, now — he’s running on his last reserves of energy, trying to play the part of a supportive friend when all he wants to do is breakdown.

You gnaw on your bottom lip anxiously. “You gotta…please can you not tell anyone else? Steve kinda wants to do a big reveal,”.

“The punk’s always been a drama queen,” Bucky murmurs, voice low and tired, the corner of his lip twitching into a little smile.

You’re not smiling, though. An anxious expression is still playing on your features. “I…wanted to tell you directly. I mean, Steve was probably gonna do it, but I—you, y’know, we have…history,”.

Bucky flaps his hand offhandedly, feigning a carefree attitude. “History is history. You’re with Steve now, I’m happy for you,”.

“I know it’s a rush, but…I love him, I do,”. After a pause, you continue, “He’s thinking of having our wedding sometime in June—,”

“What?” Bucky says sharply, interrupting you mid-sentence. He winces internally, realising his mistake. “I—I mean, that’s only what, two, three months from now? A little soon, right?” God, he hopes that that was a good enough save. His heart — what’s left of it, anyway — feels like it’s being squeezed by razor-sharp talons.

In truth, Bucky doesn’t have a problem with the fact that it’s happening so soon. You could tell him that you and Steve were getting married next week and he wouldn’t do anything to stop it. No, the issue is not in the fact that June is only a handful of weeks away; the issue is in the fact that June is…your anniversary. Okay, not  _technically_ your anniversary, given that you and Bucky were never actually together in the first place, but June us when you first propositioned Bucky. June is when the two of you first stepped onto this long and winding road.

You nod slowly, expression turning a little wistful. “I know, I know it’s a rush, Bucky. But—Steve is, heh, eager,” you say, laughing dryly. “He’s leaving for that military tour in Afghanistan at the start of July, remember? And he’ll be away for three months, so—,”

“So wouldn’t it be better to wait til’ after?” Bucky suggests, cutting in again. He can’t help it; he doesn’t want to hear the wedding bells chime. He doesn’t want you to get married in June. He doesn’t want you to get married to Steve  _full stop_ , but he especially doesn’t want it to happen in June. Even if…June means nothing to you, it means a lot to Bucky and he’d like to keep that month for himself, if at all possible. Besides, three months is…it’s not enough time for him to do something,  _anything_ , that could possibly turn this situation in his favour.

When those wedding bells ring, they’ll mark the end of an era. They’ll symbolise the fact that Bucky will never have a second chance with you. He’s not ready for that.  _Christ_ , he’s not ready for that.

He doesn’t want to love, if it’s not you; there’s no one else he trusts with his fragile heart. You’ve seen the truly black and broken parts of his soil and somehow, still managed to show him kindness. You know his past, are fully aware of the crimes he’s committed and the sickening amount of blood covering his hands, but yet — you don’t look at him differently. You don’t judge him. Bucky doesn’t want to love anyone else. His heart belongs to you; always has, always will.

“Bucky, you…” you pause, as eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. An expression of curiosity crosses your features. “Bucky, do you not want me to…?” your voice trails off, leaving Bucky to fill in the blanks.

What does he want, really? He wants you, that much is clear, but more importantly, he wants you to be  _happy_  — if you find your happiness in Steve, then who is he to judge?

“M’sorry,” Bucky sighs, leaning back and scrubbing a hand over his face, “You put me on the spot, Y/N, just—yeah, that was a little harsh. Uncalled for. S’your wedding, you do what you want,”.

But if he’s honest—

_Fuck it_ ,  _Barnes_ , he growls internally,  _that’s the problem, ain’t it? It’s always an ‘if’. You’re never honest. You’re just a goddamn rotten liar, lyin’ to everyone’s faces_.

—he wants you to see through his lies. Bucky wants you to see right through the flimsy mask he wears, expose him for the crumbling wreck of a human being that he’s become. He wants you to peel back the curtain, tear open the fine wrappings that bind his sanity together and see Bucky for what he truly is: a hopeless, love-struck, abject failure. Bucky wants to get caught, wants you to see how unhappy he is. He wants you to see the truth, the reality of the situation, but—at the same time, he doesn’t.

“No, Bucky, if you’re not okay with it, the whole June thing, I can talk to Steve, we can—,”

“Y/N, seriously, m’fine,” Bucky says, whipping up a cocky smirk and even managing a small laugh. “Just a little surprised, honestly. Life’s too short to be waiting around, right? Go on, get married,”.

“Bucky, it’s…it’s because it’s June, isn’t it?” you ask quietly, turning away to look into the distance, again. “S’cause it’d be one year, since…”

“Yeah,” Bucky says thickly, “Just seems a little weird, is all,”.

You take your hands out of your pockets — the diamond on your left ring finger sparkling in the light of the setting sun — and place them both on his thigh, forcing Bucky to look into your eyes. “Barnes,” you say softly, “Tell me the truth. What do you want?”

_Fuck_.

“I—want you to be happy,” Bucky says, voice barely louder than a whisper. He swallows and hopes for all he is worth, praying that you don’t see the lie for what it is. It’s not technically  _un_ true, it’s just not the full truth. A thousand words are clamouring to be spoken. Only two of them really matter, though.

I want you to be happy _with me._

—————————

“Barnes!” you cry, snapping Bucky back to the present as you flop onto the bed beside him. “You okay? You seem pretty exhausted,”.

“M’fine, just a little jet-lagged,” Bucky replies, speaking directly into the duvet.

“Shall we go have dinner? Scout the area a little?” you suggest.

With a tired groan, Bucky pushes himself up onto his forearms to look at you. You’re spread out on the bed, hair in a ruffled mess around your face, a playful grin on your lips. For a moment, it’s enough to take Bucky back to the compound, back to six months ago, when he had you all to himself and things weren’t as fucked up as they are now.

The dream shatters like a breaking mirror when he catches sight of the ring on your finger.

“Yeah,” he sighs, “We might as well,”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Share this chapter on [tumblr!](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/167626259565/a-messed-up-place-six/) Whilst you're there, why not say hi?


	8. SEVEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You’ve had a little too much to drink. Shit happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am being 200% serious, here: if you’re squeamish about anything even _vaguely_ non-consensual, do not read this chapter. Dub-con explained further in the end notes.

The mission has been a success. You and Bucky have been in Kuala Lumpur for two weeks and in that time, you’ve managed to accomplish a lot of things. First and foremost, you’ve managed to decontaminate the drug load before it got distributed, using a fancy cocktail of chemicals that Stark cooked up. That had been a team effort, with Bucky doing some pretty intense seducing and sweet-talking, whilst you’d snuck into an abandoned warehouse to deal with the problem. In addition, the two of you managed to crack open a hole in Nova’s trafficking links, wheedling out some information from a low-level gang member — using no small amount of physical coercion — in order to determine the perfect location to plant a double-agent. All you need to do is get back to the compound and pass on the relevant information.

Tonight, therefore, is a night of celebration. It’s your final night out here in the wonderful, albeit swelteringly hot and unbearably humid city of KL. You’re clearly making the most out of your last night here, but Bucky’s rather more downcast, isn’t really in a celebratory mood. He doesn’t have it in himself to be happy anymore. Sure, the mission went better than he could have ever hoped, but he’s just feeling quite detached from it all. Seeing you looking happy and joyous on the dance floor is almost enough to tease some joy out of the broken remains of his heart, but really, he’s just exhausted. He’s tired of having to hold himself together all the time.

You’ve let loose tonight, more so than Bucky has ever seen you. You’re currently having the time of your life on the dance floor of this packed club, having thrown back several shots of vodka to cast away your inhibitions. Even in the dim lighting, Bucky can still catch sight of your form as you twist and grind your body amongst the throng of people surrounding you. You’ve give yourself over to the music, your body moving in rhythm with the song’s loud and erotic beat. Bucky can’t tear his eyes off you, no matter how hard he tries. Though he tells himself he’s only keeping an eye on you to make sure you don’t get into any trouble — though who is he kidding? You’re more than capable of handling any trouble that comes your way, drunk as you may be — in reality, he knows he can’t stop watching because he wants nothing more than to be dancing beside you.

You look stunning.

To be fair, you could be wearing a trash bag in lieu of clothing and you’d still manage to steal Bucky’s breath, but something about your dress tonight is just…especially exquisite.

It’s a spectacular cobalt blue number; long-sleeved, stopping at your mid-thigh, with a plunging neckline that reveals a fair amount of your chest. It hugs your body in all the right ways, accentuating the femininity of your form. The bodice is adorned with sequins that sparkle alluringly whenever the strobing lights of the club land on you. And if that wasn’t enough? Your hair is mussed from you running your fingers through it multiple times. Your makeup is glamorous; all smoky eyes and cherry-red lips without looking too overdone. A thin veil of sweat coats your skin, giving you an ethereal glow.

It’s a little after one in the morning now, and Bucky decides that it’s about time for the two of you to be heading back to the hotel. Your flight home tomorrow isn’t particularly early, but Bucky doesn’t think he can stand another second of watching you dancing when you’re dancing like  _that_  — it’s driving him to the edge of insanity. Bucky throws back the last of his whiskey, sets his glass on the bar, then pushes past the crowd of people to get to you. Catching hold of your upper arm, he presses his lips close to your ear so that you can hear him over the relentless thrum of the bass.

“C’mon, let’s go home!” Bucky shouts.

You turn to him and narrow your eyes. “No!” you shout back, “I wanna stay, come dance with me!”. You grab hold of his wrist, trying to tug him deeper into the mass of swaying bodies.

“C’mon, Y/N, you’re drunk!” Bucky says, more insistently this time.

Bucky is in agony, having to be this close to you. Though his nose is assaulted by the bitter smokiness in the club, the sour tang of alcohol and the general mustiness of sweat, Bucky can still catch the faintest whiff of your perfume and  _goodness_  if that doesn’t bring back a whole host of memories.

“Am not!” you slur. Someone bumps into your shoulder, causing you to teeter unsteadily in your heels. Bucky’s hand darts out and catches your waist, steadying you.

“Okay, well, I’m tired, so let’s get going,” Bucky reasons, tightening his grip on your arm and practically dragging you out of the crowd. You stumble, then get a grip on Bucky’s shoulder and lean heavily against him as he walks you out of the club.

He glances over his shoulder to catch you pouting. “Fine,” you huff, “You’re no fun,”. Bucky shakes his head as he chuckles, bemused by how cute you look when you’re drunk and upset.

The cab ride home is its own twisted kind of torture. You’re sprawled against Bucky, your head pillowed on his shoulder and your legs stretched out as much as they can be on the backseat. The skirt of your dress has ridden up your legs to  _highly indecent_ levels, and it is taking every ounce of Bucky’s willpower to not stare at that expanse of exposed skin. Staring is impolite, so Bucky forces himself to avert his gaze — but  _fucking hell_ , you make that a difficult task.

More importantly, though, with you this close, he can’t help but catch a strong whiff of your scent every time he inhales. Now that you’ve escaped from the overpowering stench of sweat and alcohol, there is no masking the sweet fragrance of your shampoo, or the crisp, fresh scent of your skin. It’s a smell that’s wholly you and it makes Bucky shift uncomfortably in his seat. He angles his hips slightly away from you, vehemently praying to anyone in the heavens above that might be listening, so that you don’t notice the situation starting to develop in his pants.

You’re pretty much silent as Bucky brings the two of you up to your room. His arm is wrapped protectively around your waist to steady you as you walk in your heels — and yes, he’s probably holding you a little closer than is strictly appropriate, given the fact that you’re engaged to his best friend, but it’s a small luxury he hasn’t had in a while, so he doesn’t beat himself up too much about it. You make no move to shove him away, which Bucky is secretly appreciative of.

When you get to your room, Bucky whips the key card from out of his back pocket, swipes it across the card reader and ushers you inside, herding you over to the bed. You perch on the edge of it, a picture of docility; legs crossed at the ankles and hands folded in your lap.

Since it would have been rather awkward to share the only bed in the suite — given your history together and the fact that you are now engaged to Steve — you and Bucky have been taking it in turns to sleep on the bed. Technically, you’re supposed to be sleeping on the living room sofa tonight, as it’s Bucky’s turn to have the bed, but he figures that he’ll be a gentleman and let you have the better bunking spot. You’ll probably thank him for it in the morning.

Satisfied that you’re going to stay put on the bed, Bucky dashes to the bedside table to grab a bottle of water. He cracks open the seal and brings the bottle to your lips, murmuring soft encouragements to you so that you take a few hearty sips. When you tap his wrist to tell him that you’re good, Bucky pulls the bottle away and watches as a couple of stray drops of water escape from the corner of your lips. They trickle down your chin, meander over the column of your neck, past your décolletage and finally, disappear between the valley of your breasts. Bucky finds himself unable to do anything but track the movement of those droplets as they travel over your skin. He wets his lips subconsciously.

When he finally drags his gaze upwards to meet yours, he swallows nervously; you’ve been watching him the entire time. When your eyes make contact, you arch an eyebrow seductively as you  _slowly_ lean back, resting your weight on your palms as you cross your legs at the knee, forcing the skirt of your dress to ride up a little bit more. The position forces your chest outwards. You flash Bucky a coy smile as you gaze up at him through your lashes.

_What the hell?_ is the only thought that Bucky’s rational brain is capable of thinking, at this moment. The rest of his mind is fixated on the fact that you look goddamn  _delicious_.

Bucky swallows nervously. “Uhh…well..um..you’re okay, right, Y/N? I’m just…um…gonna go bunk on the sofa,” he mumbles, tightening his grip on the bottle of water in his hand as he turns to leave.

You lunge out — reflexes surprisingly fast for someone who’s that drunk — and catch the sleeve of his dress shirt between your fingers.

“Stay, Bucky,” you breathe, your fingers encircling his wrist. He swallows again, becoming acutely aware of the manic thumping of his heart against his rib cage. Bucky shakes his head as he twists his hand out of your grip.

“No, Y/N,” he says resolutely, “You’re engaged to Steve, remember? It’s not…s’not right for me to stay…with you,”.

His heart does a sickening lurch when you stand up and take a couple of steps towards him, tottering unsteadily on your feet. Bucky takes a few steps back in retreat until there’s nowhere else for him to go; you’ve backed him into the wall. He drops the plastic bottle in his shock. You’re inches away from him now, so close that he can smell the faint tang of alcohol on your breath and see the hunger in your lust-darkened eyes.

“Stay, Bucky,” you repeat, your voice breathier this time — more of a purr, than anything else.

Bucky shakes his head again, swallowing agitatedly. The ultimate battle between head and heart is raging inside him; he feels like these conflicting desires could very well tear him apart. He reaches out to put both hands on your shoulders, intending to push you away, but in a lightning-fast motion, you catch the wrist of his metal arm.

His breathing hitches.

You turn your face to press your lips against the heel of his palm. Bucky hasn’t got any sensation there — all he detects is feather-light pressure — but the gesture stuns and confuses him all the same. Before his brain can even process what’s going on, you catch his other hand and run your lips over the pulse point in his wrist. His breathing stutters because this time he can  _feel_ you; the tenderness of your lips, the warmth of your breath.

Your touch is like a drug, making his brain work more sluggishly. Bucky is still trying to make sense of the situation, but you’re forging ahead like a woman on a mission, leaning up on your tip-toes and pressing a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth.

Fuck.  _That_ draws him back to reality.

“I said  _no_ , Y/N!” Bucky cries, forcibly shoving you away from him. You stumble back and, unable to find your balance on unsteady feet, land on the bed with a soft  _oomph_. Bucky is unnerved; pulse racing erratically, breath coming in quick pants and flesh hand visibly trembling with — fear? Rage? Desire? He’s unsure, but either way, he needs to get  _out_ before he does something that he’ll sorely regret in the morning.

The two of you had a rule, back when you were still friends-with-benefits. Actually, you had a few rules, but one of them was to never have sex whilst drunk or under the influence of drugs. It’d be too risky and unsafe. And — even though that agreement has long since been null, Bucky is reluctant to cross the boundary. He doesn’t want to hurt you, or Steve, or—

“Y/N what the  _fuck_ are you doing?” Bucky hisses. Lost in his own thoughts, he didn’t register the fact that you’ve slunk off the bed and crept across the floor to kneel in front of him.  _Fuck_ if that isn’t an image that his body likes very much. You tip your head back to look at him, your bottom lip caught between your teeth as you flutter your lashes seductively. Your hands are lightly resting on his outer thighs, thumbs rubbing gentle circles against his leg. They’re two searing hot points of contact that Bucky can’t ignore. You’ve got him pinned into place by the sheer power of your gaze. Bucky’s lost himself in the depth of your eyes and before he catches onto what’s happening, you’ve got your palm pressing against the hard outline of his cock, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“ _Jesus_ ,” he swears, the air in his lungs escaping in a rapid exhale. You start to stroke him through his all-too-tight pants, the friction a mind-numbingly pleasurable sensation on his cock. Each time Bucky cracks open his eyes to glance down at your hand, he stares helplessly at the diamond ring on your finger. It taunts him as it sparkles and glints in the moonlight streaming in through the window. This is wrong,  _so wrong,_ on so many levels.

“You want me, Bucky,” you murmur, almost absentmindedly, “And I want you,”.

“Y/N,” Bucky croaks weakly, “Please…don’t…don’t do this, what about Steve?”.

The protest sounds pitiful, even to his ears. He’s having to exercise an extortionate amount of restraint to prevent himself from jerking his hips into your hand.  _God_ , it’s everything he’s been craving this past month — Bucky’s missed this, so damn much, and it’s taking every last scrap of concentration in him to stop himself from grinding into your palm. Bucky’s treading on precariously thin ice here, he realises that, but all the blood in his body is rushing south, making it increasingly difficult to think. With each passing second, more and more of his shaky resistance is crumbling away, succumbing to your alluring pull. You are an enchanting siren and Bucky? He’s nothing more than the sailor who fell prey to your lull of your song.

You rise to your feet, steading yourself by resting your hands on Bucky’s waist. Your face is a hair’s breadth away from his; the two of you are breathing in the same air, now. “Steve doesn’t need to know,” you whisper, giggling afterwards like you’re a naughty toddler who’s just done something behind their parents’ back. “It can be our little secret,” you add.

“Y/N, don’t—,”

But whatever Bucky was about to say is cut off by you mashing your lips to his. Bucky’s brain short circuits. He thinks he might actually pass out. For all the times the two of you have had sex together, he’s never once gotten the opportunity to savour the taste of your lips, so this is everything he’s ever wanted—

—but this is so  _wrong_ , so wrong, not how it was supposed to happen at all.

Even so — and Bucky feels truly guilty for even thinking this — he love it. Oh, it’s a hundred, a thousand, a  _million_ times better than he ever dreamed it would be. Bucky can’t suppress the little whimper that bubbles out of his chest, can’t stop himself from resting his big hands on your waist, splaying his fingers wide to hold your body nearer to his. You shift a little closer, moaning happily into the kiss as Bucky sinks his teeth into your bottom lip. Your lips part easily, allowing Bucky to teasingly lick at the inside of your mouth. He can taste the remnants of vodka on you, but behind that, there’s a flavour that’s uniquely you; heady and complex and too damn amazing for words to describe. You nip playfully at his bottom lip as your hands start to wander over his body.

Bucky tentatively tangles his fingers into the hair at the nape of your neck, deepening the kiss further. He wants this, wants this  _so fucking much—_

But  _Steve_ , his brain agonises.

‘Conflicted’ is not an adequate enough word to describe the emotions warring inside his mind.

With your fingers hooked into his belt loops, you somehow manage to garner enough coordination to walk the two of you backwards towards the bed. Bucky’s hands are idly roaming over you; running up and down your sides, roving over your back and ass, feeling you up the way he’s been dying to do for  _weeks_ now, ever since you left him. Bucky can’t get enough of your taste, so his lips hardly ever leave yours. He’s kissing you like a man starved, like you are the oxygen that sustains his body, like he’ll  _die_ if he ever stops kissing you. He  _never_ wants to stop kissing you; he’s determined to kiss your lips until they’re pink and swollen.

You fall backwards onto the bed, pulling Bucky’s body on top of you. He catches his weight on his forearms, resting them on either side of your head, caging you in. Behind him, he hears a pair of twin thunks as you kick off your heels. Your legs are spread wide, making your dress ride up to a positively scandalous length. Bucky lies between your thighs, his hard-on pressing against your groin. He grinds into you, sinfully,  _dirtily_ slow, relishing the desperate, needy mewl that rips free of your throat.

In a flash, the atmosphere in the room changes. The kiss becomes hungrier, more wanton, the air punctuated every now and then with a choked-off moan or a breathy sigh. Your fingers are working down the line of buttons on Bucky’s shirt, eager to get him out of it. You yank the shirt-tails out of his pants then shove the garment down his shoulders. Bucky shrugs it off, tossing it to some distant corner of the room. Your fingers busy themselves by exploring the expanse of his chest — mapping out the contours and valleys of his muscles, the raised ridges of his scars.

All the while, the incessant battle between right and wrong rages on in his mind. He can stop this — scrap that, he  _should_ stop this — right now, but he at the same time, he  _can’t_. Bucky’s being selfish, he knows. This…whatever it is you’re doing together…it’s only going to make things worse. Bucky is only punishing himself, by being with you. He’s going to have so many regrets come morning light, but  _god_ , he’s missed this. He’s missed this so much. You are the forbidden fruit he keeps coming back for, the drug he wants running through his veins. He’s drunk on you, addicted to you and the fact that you want him? Well, that’s a miracle in and of itself — he’s powerless to resist your charm.

If Steve were ever to find out about tonight, it’d break his heart for sure. Bucky is convinced that some part of him must truly be evil, because how else could he find it in himself to  _betray_ Steve like this? Steve’s his brother in anything but blood, a part of Bucky’s own soul.

And what about you? When you wake up tomorrow morning —  _god_  will you hate him? Will you push him away? It’s probably for the best, anyhow.

You pull Bucky out of his thoughts when you grab his hand and manoeuvre it to your back. Bucky is momentarily confused until the tips of his fingers brush against the zipper of your dress and understanding clicks into place. He swallows again, quelling down a fresh wave of nerves.

If he does this, there’s no turning back.

You roll your hips upwards, pressing your thigh against his straining cock and Bucky’s a goner. With a low growl, he pinches the zipper between his fingers and drags it down. Bucky pushes up onto his knees momentarily to help you shimmy out of your dress. It, too, ends up discarded on the floor.

“Fuck, baby,” he breathes, awed by your beauty. His voice is deep and husky, almost unrecognisable, even to his own ears. The lingerie you’ve got on is particularly ravishing; black and lacy, with a whole network of delicate straps that just amplify  _everything_. You look like temptation reincarnated. His dick grows impossibly harder at the sight of you.

You pull him down again, catching Bucky’s lips in another smouldering kiss. His mind goes fuzzy, sex-drunk from your taste. You wiggle a hand underneath you to unclasp your bra and then  _fuck_ your bare nipples are rubbing against Bucky’s pecs.They’ve peaked into stiff nubs and Bucky catches one between a thumb and a forefinger, rolling it gently. He eagerly swallows down the moan that punches free of your chest.

“Baby,” you whine, your lips barely breaking the kiss, “C’mon,  _please_  baby,”.

Bucky’s breathing catches. You’ve never called him ‘baby’ before, but  _lord_ , he wants to hear it again, wants you to call him every pet name under the sun if it means that he can pretend to be yours for the night.

Your hands are at his belt now, fumbling with the buckle. “Off, now,” you growl, your voice low and throaty, your lips brushing against his with every word. Bucky hurriedly complies, divesting himself of his pants, shoes and socks in quick succession. By this point, he’s so aroused that a wet spot is starting to form at the front of his boxers. He’s as hard as a fucking diamond, could probably use his cock to hammer nails.

“Uh, uhhh,  _fuck_ , Y/N,” Bucky gasps, as your clever fingers slip under the waistband of his boxers and curl around the base of his cock. You stroke it idly as you press lazy kisses to his neck and collarbone. Your hand is as soft as velvet, your fist tight enough to have his eyes rolling into the back of his head. Bucky bites down on his bottom lip to stifle a moan as your thumb swipes over his sensitive head. He’s achingly hard, desperate to be inside you.

_Oh crap_.

Bucky hasn’t got any condoms with him.

Sex between you and him wasn’t exactly on his mind when he packed for the trip. Besides, he didn’t think he would need to sleep with anyone for the mission and even if he had to, he could’ve just bought some from a corner shop, or something. Bucky internally curses himself for his lack of foresight — although in fairness, not even in his wildest dreams could he have ever imagined himself in this position. If Bucky does this…he’ll be breaking another one of your rules; no condoms, no sex. Again, although the two of you are no longer ‘together’, he knows he’s going to beat himself up over this tomorrow. It’s another mistake to add to his ever-growing list.

You’re pushing his boxers off his ass, now. Bucky finds himself powerless to stop you and then — fucking hellhe’s  _naked,_ his bare cock rubbing against your sex, only a thin scrap of lace in the way.

Bucky doesn’t think he can bring himself to take those off you and thank  _god_ he doesn’t have to; you hook your thumbs into the waistband of your panties, raise your ass off the bed and slide the skimpy material down your thighs. Bucky drags them the rest of the way down your legs and flings them to the floor.

Fuck. This is it.

You’re naked and spread out for him, all doe-eyes and kiss-bitten lips. Bucky positions himself between your legs and swallows heavily as he takes himself in hand, giving his cock a couple of pumps.

“You sure you want this, Y/N?” he asks softly. Bucky needs to hear it from you. Why? He’s not entirely sure, doesn’t know why he’s bothering, really. You’re drunk off your ass, so your answer’s pretty meaningless, anyway. He can still back out, though, Bucky tells himself. He can leave and pretend that nothing ever happened when morning rolls around. You probably — hopefully — won’t have a single memory about tonight.

“Bucky, c’mon,” you slur, nodding your head in consent as you rake your nails down his torso. “I want you, I  _need_ you,”.

_Not in the way I want you to need me,_ he thinks morosely.

Bucky brings a couple of fingers to your entrance and swirls them around, groaning at how  _dripping wet_ you are. Fuck — you’re so wet it’s practically leaking out of you, dribbling down to your ass. He can’t bring himself to tease you about it, or talk dirty to you; he can’t make himself growl — low and throaty against the shell of your ear — about what a  _good girl_  you are, getting so wet for him. It’s not right. It’s taking things a step too far.

“Bucky, baby,  _please_ ,” you whine, bucking your hips up into his hand.

Bucky takes a deep breath, steels himself internally, then brings the head of his cock to your glistening folds. You let out a contented hum. Bucky buries himself inside you in one smooth motion, biting down hard on his bottom lip to hold back the string of curses threatening to escape. This is the first time he’s ever gone bare inside you — inside  _anyone,_ for that matter — and it’s a billion times better than he thought it could ever be. Never could he have imagined how deliciously good you’d feel around him, silky smooth and snug and hot and  _so fucking wet_.

Once he’s buried all the way inside you, Bucky stills, giving you a moment to adjust to his girth. It also gives him an opportunity to tame the thundering roar of his pulse, reel himself back from the precipice of orgasm. You’re so good, so  _unbelievably_ good.

“Baby,  _p-please_ ,” you mewl, rolling your hips insistently against his.

Bucky firmly believes that you’ll be the death of him.

He starts rocking his hips into you at a slow, leisurely pace, savouring the feel of your pulsating walls around his bare cock. The sensation is unlike anything he’s ever felt before, and Bucky’s brain is going into overdrive trying to catalogue every minute detail about you.

“Bucky, ohhh, baby…yes,” you purr, eyelids drooping shut as you arch your body into his touch. “Oh, you feel s-so good,”.

Bucky leans down to press his lips to yours, licking into your mouth as your hand reaches up to card through his hair. He moans appreciatively when your nails scratch across his scalp. His metal hand travels down your side and grasps your thigh, hitching it up so that you hook it around his waist; this changes the angle of penetration, allowing Bucky to rake the head of his cock across your sweet spot with every movement. You moan wantonly, digging the fingers of your free hand into the meat of his shoulder.

“B-baby,” you pant, throwing your head back in ecstasy as pleasure wracks through your system. “Bucky…oh, ple-please..p-please, d-don’t sto-op,” you stutter.

“You close, Y/N?” Bucky murmurs, brushing his lips over the hinge over of your jaw.

“Y-yes!” you cry, “Yeah—so, so  _close,_ ”.

“Come for me, then,” he whispers, pressing soft, butterfly kisses down your neck, “Come for me, beautiful,”.

And it is, indeed, quite the spectacle, watching you come undone. Your face contorts into a pretty grimace, your eyes screwing shut as your entire body trembles with the intensity of your climax. Bucky grits his teeth and fucks you through it. He holds his hips flush to your core and rolls his body against yours, his pubic bone grinding into your clit with each sinuous movement. You’re loud, so loud, babbling a string of incoherent words as you ride out the waves of pleasure.

_I want you to love me_ , Bucky thinks, as he watches you come apart beneath him.  _I want you to love me more than this. More than_ just  _this; more than just my body and what it can give you._

The sensation of your pussy walls fluttering around his cock very nearly tips him over the edge. It’s almost impossible, but Bucky manages to hold onto his self control through the thinnest of threads. Your body is boneless and weak as you come off your high, but from the way your mouthing at the hollow of his throat and rolling your hips against him, it’s clear that you’re far from finished.

Bucky’s so goddamn close that he can’t help it now — he’s barely pulling out of the heat of your pussy with each thrust. His hair is a matted mess and rivulets of sweat are trickling down his back. Bucky’s groin is covered with the evidence of your arousal; you’re so wet that lewd squelching noises accompany every pump of his hips. Low, feral grunts rumble free of his chest each time he gets in a particularly good stroke. The earthy smell of sex fills his nostrils. He’s now slamming into you with such force that your breath is being punched out of your lungs every time he buries himself to the base of his cock.

“Uh, uhhhh, uh—Bucky,” you whimper, “Baby, oh m’gonna c-come again,”.

“Yeah?” he growls, bending down to nip at your bottom lip. Bucky’s hands are fisted in the sheets on either side of your head, clenching them so tightly that the knuckles of his flesh have have turned white. Your hands are cupping his jaw, pulling him closer so that you can get at his lips. The kiss is sloppy and wet, more of an uncoordinated clashing of teeth than anything else, but it’s fucking good in its own right. His calculated, well-angled thrusts have given way to something more primal, as his body succumbs to its carnal urges. You hook both legs around his waist, crossing your ankles at the small of his back. Your arms lock behind his neck, keeping Bucky’s face close to yours.

Bucky’s lips never leave your skin. He alternates between kissing your mouth, trailing his lips across your jaw and nibbling gently at the crook of your neck. As he draws closer and closer to the edge of release, Bucky presses his face into your skin, breathing in your addictive scent. The steady  _slap, slap, slap_ of his balls colliding with your ass gives way to a more frantic rhythm. Bucky can feel the coil of pleasure tightening in his gut, signalling his impending release.

“Touch me, baby, touch me,” you beg, blindly grabbing for his hand. With a low groan, Bucky brings his fingers to the apex of your thighs, wiggling them around until you inhale sharply, the tips of his fingers having just brushed against your swollen and sensitive clit.

“Come for me, Y/N,” Bucky grunts, as he swirls his fingers through the mess between your thighs, “C’mon, baby,  _please_ ,”.

“Bu- _cky_!”

Hearing his name tumble from your lips in a breathless, choked-out cry is what becomes Bucky’s ultimate undoing. His balls draw up tight and his back tenses up as pleasure rushes through his body, radiating outwards from the base of his cock. At the last second, Bucky remembers that he’s not got a condom on — and  _Christ,_ if that realisation doesn’t almost give him a heart-attack — so he wrenches himself free of your pussy, twisting to disentangle himself from your legs.

Bucky’s hand immediately closes over his shaft, fist stroking over it at an inhuman speed. He grunts, low and feral from the back of his throat, as ribbons of spunk land on your lower belly, painting it a startling shade of white. Your own body twitches as your second orgasm of the night courses through your system.

He’s breathing heavily once it’s all over, putting up no fight when your fingers close around his wrist and tug him down towards you. Bucky presses his lips to your in a languid, luxurious kiss. You’re pliant and sated underneath him, lips parting easily under the inquisitive probing of his tongue.

When Bucky pulls away, he sees that your eyelids are beginning to droop shut. He gently smooths back the strands of hair clinging to your temples. “Go to sleep, baby,” Bucky murmurs.

You hum in agreement, twisting onto your side and tucking yourself against his body. You reach a hand back, grab his arm and drape it over your waist. Bucky stiffens, unwilling to let himself relax against you. It’s another one of your rules — although the two of you used to have sex together all the time, you’d never actually  _slept_ together. You’ve never spent the night in each other’s arms.

He’s broken enough rules tonight, though.

“Y/N, I need to go clean up,” Bucky protests softly, even as you’re entangling your legs with his.

“Mmm, no, stay,” you mumble.

“Y/N—,”

“Please? Just until I sleep?”

Well. He’s come this far, why  _not_ allow himself this little luxury? Bucky’s so exhausted, he’s got no fight left in his system to argue with you.

“Okay, baby,” Bucky concedes, settling down against you.

A pleased hum rumbles out of chest as you snuggle against him. “Love you, Bucky,” you murmur, as you drift off to sleep.

It’s so faint that Bucky almost doesn’t catch it — he probably wouldn’t have caught it, had it not been for his enhanced hearing. Though uttered as an afterthought, those three words make the heartache in his chest a million times worse.

_Not the way I want you to love me_ , he thinks.

Bucky’s gaze drifts over your profile, taking in the slope of your nose, the graceful curve of your jawline, the shape of your lips. No words can ever hope to come close to describing your beauty. His heart is crying out for you, yearning to keep you close and make you his.

“Sweetheart, I love you,” Bucky breathes, stroking his fingers down your arm, watching as goosebumps erupt on your skin in their wake. “You might never love me back, and that’s—that’s okay, but I want you to know that I love you. I—I love you the most,”. He wants you to have heard him, yet hopes that you haven’t.

His breathing sounds all too loud and unsteady in the quiet of the room, a sharp contrast to your deep and steady rise and fall of your chest. Bucky is just about to curl up against you and try to catch some sleep when he catches something shimmering out of the corner of his eye.

Your ring.

It’s the glaringly obvious representation of not only  _your_ infidelity, but also Bucky’s  _complicity_ in that act. That diamond symbolises betrayal and heartbreak, secrecy and deceit.

What, in all of hell, has Bucky just done?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Dubious consent warning explained** : Bucky has sex with Y/N whilst she’s drunk. There is dubious consent from both parties in this instance; Y/N because she is inebriated and therefore can’t make a coherent decision, and Bucky because he’s not 100% certain that he wants to do this, even saying ‘no’ multiple times. At no point is there verbal consent from Bucky, actually. So, can this be viewed as rape? It’s a grey area. I’ll let you come to your own conclusion.
> 
> I feel it is very important to state this explicitly - I am _not_ in any way condoning this sort of behaviour, please don’t take it that way. This is purely a work of fiction. In the real world, ‘no’ seriously does mean ‘no’, everybody. If a situation like this has ever happened to you, and you want to talk to someone about it? Feel free to message me on Tumblr. 
> 
> Share this [post!](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/167708904860/a-messed-up-place-seven/)


	9. EIGHT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after one hell of a night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, this chapter's a little complicated with the warnings, I'm gonna be honest with you. 
> 
> Mentions of past sexual activities and dub-con/rape (nothing graphic or explicit, but if you’re squeamish, I would tread with caution). Sexual activity and sexual arousal discussed, but there’s no smut in this chapter. Put it this way: If this chapter were to get an AO3 rating, I’d give it an ‘M’.
> 
> Also, I'd like to state for the record: I swear on my life that reader is a nice person, y’all. She is, she really is. Just…nice people do questionable things, sometimes. Apologies for the typos.

Time goes by so slowly for those who are waiting for something to happen.

In Bucky’s case, that ‘something’ is waiting for the ninth day of June, otherwise known as the day when you become Mrs Rogers and Bucky’s chance of finding a happily ever after with you well and truly evaporate into thin air.

There are exactly 34 days left before your wedding. Not that Bucky’s counting, or anything. He doesn’t have a countdown app on his phone —  _god_  that’s too obvious. He may or may not have a small desk calendar stashed in his bedside table, though. He may or may not be crossing off the days as they pass, the bright red x’s he slashes with pen acting like a foreboding symbol of his impending lifetime of misery.

There are exactly 34 days left before you walk down that flower-strewn aisle in your breathtakingly gorgeous white dress.

34 days left until Steve puts a ring on your fingers and calls you his until death do you part

34 days left before Bucky’s time runs out.

Bucky’s accepted the inevitability of that outcome. He reasons that the sooner he accepts it, the longer his mind and body can adjust to it and therefore, the happier he can pretend to be when your big day actually rolls around.

Today, as he seems to be doing with increasing frequency as of late, Bucky’s holed himself up in his room. At least this afternoon, he’s tried to do something vaguely useful with himself, by clearing out the crap that lives underneath his bed.

Seriously. The experience has been a wake-up call. He clearly needs to do this more often, or be a little less lazy about throwing stuff in the bin.  _God_ knows how long that apple has been living under there.

Just as he’s tying off the bin bag, a sharp rap sounds on the door.

“Come in!” he calls.

“Hey, Bucky!” you chirp, shouldering the door open just wide enough for you to pop your head around. “You mind if I ask you a question?”

“Sure, come in,” he says, straightening up as he shoves the bin bag into the corner of his room; he’ll deal with it later. Bucky notes that you’re holding a box between your hands. It’s a glossy black colour, slightly longer than your average shoe box ad slightly shallower than one too. The seal on the front has been broken and a hint of pink tissue paper is peeking through the gap. He wonders what you’ve got inside it.

You set the box down at the foot of his bed, then step back and rest your hands on your hips. Your head is tilted to the side and you’re gnawing on your bottom lip incessantly, your gaze blank as you stare at the floor. Bucky shoves his hands into the pockets of his sweats and clears his throat obnoxiously.

“So…what’s up?” he asks, “What can I do to help you?”

The sound of his voice snaps you out of your trance. You look up at Bucky through your lashes, sigh heavily, then shake your head, seemingly frustrated. “I—,” you start, before clamping your mouth shut and crossing your arms underneath your breasts. You gingerly perch on the edge of the bed, to the left of the black box. The fingers of your right hand curl over the lid, about to pull it open, but — just when Bucky thinks you’re about to reveal the contents of the box to him — you pull your hand away at the last minute, chuckling in a self-depreciative manner. You smile forlornly in Bucky’s direction.

“Okay,” you sigh, “I know this is…look, you can say no if you want to, alright?”

Bucky furrows his brows, perplexed. “Say no…to what?”

You barrel on, continuing to ramble as if Bucky had never even spoken. Your words come out in a torrent, rushed because of your nerves. “I wouldn’t be asking you if I didn’t have to, but Nat and Wanda are out and I really need to hide these before Steve gets back, and—,”

“Hide what? Y/N what the fuck is going on?” Bucky asks, anxiety levels progressively increasing the longer he listens to you.

“—because I really want this to be a surprise for him, but, like, I really,  _really_  understand if this is a little awkward for you. And if you’d rather not, just say and I’ll—,”

“Y/N!” Bucky snaps

Your jaw stops moving, your mouth snapping shut sharply.

“Breathe,” Bucky murmurs, voice low and soothing. You close your eyes and inhale deeply through your nose.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to shout,” he says apologetically, scrubbing his hand over his eyes. “Just wanted you to calm down. Start from the beginning, doll — what did you need my help with?”

You groan, throwing your hands up to cover your face.

“I bought some lingerie and I need you to help me decide which one I should wear,” you mumble, the words coming out slightly muffled because your face is hiding behind your fingers.

“Which one you should wear?” Bucky echoes, mystified. “Wear for what?”

You drop your hands to reveal your sheepish expression. “Um…for my wedding. Underneath my dress. For um…y’know,” you mutter, letting your voice trail off as you cross your chest in a defensive posture.

Bucky blinks owlishly. “You want me…to help you…decide what lingerie you should wear,” he repeats slowly, at the risk of sounding like a fool. He’s still confused as to why exactly you’re coming to  _him_  for advice, of all people.

“Well, it’s kinda for my wedding night too, ‘cause I wanted to surprise Steve,”.

 _Oh_.

It’s not like Bucky’s under any illusions, or anything; he’s very much aware of the fact that you and Steve have a healthy and active sex life (he’s had the misfortune of hearing the two of you getting it on during more than one occasion), but this is…downright strange. Oh god, if he goes through with this, he’s going to know what you’ve got on underneath your dress—he’s…he’s not going to be able to take his mind off that fact for the entire day.  _Goodness_ , he’s going to know what Steve sees when he finally gets you out of that dress. Fuck. Bucky’ll not be able to focus on anything else for that entire evening, because he’ll be so caught up in his head. He’s not jealous, per se, but the reminder just…strikes a chord inside him. He feels a tad bit remorseful, if he’s honest.

“Doll, I hardly know anything about lingerie,” Bucky points out, taking his hands out of his pockets to gesture helplessly. “Don’t think I’m gonna be much help to you,”.

“I know,” you huff, “But you know what I look like undressed and you know what I look good  _in_  and bonus — you know Steve,”.

“Yeah, as a  _friend,_ ” Bucky retorts, “Hardly know what he likes seeing his gal in, doll,”.

“Ugh, forget it,” you grumble, “This was stupid. I get it, if you don’t wanna help, that’s fine, I’ll just—,”

“No, no,” Bucky says hurriedly, crossing the distance to the bed in two large strides, “I’ll help, you’re just gonna owe me big time,”.

The corner of your lips twitch up into a weak smile. “I—look, I get that this is kinda shitty of me to do, and I wouldn’t involve you if I really didn’t have to…’cause I get that this is a lil’ weird because of the…history between us, but…uhh…yeah. A second opinion would really be useful,”. You pause, then hastily tack on, “But you can say no if you really would rather not do this, it’s cool,”.

Bucky sits down on the bed on the other side of the box, angling his body so that he’s facing you. “Let’s see what we’re working with, then,” he says, lips curling into a half-smirk. Bucky imagines it’s the kind of cock-sure smile his past self might have put on.

You smile tentatively at him before flipping open the lid of the box to reveal delicate scraps of lace surrounded by pink and white tissue paper. The inside of the box is a crisp white colour and there is a company name embossed in gold curlicue font on the inside of the lid. Bucky guesses that this must be some high-end stuff.

“So there’re basically three sets in here,” you explain, deftly picking out the pieces one by one and arranging them on the bed so that they’re laid out in a row. “I couldn’t decide which one I liked best, ‘cause they all have different vibes, y’know? Wasn’t sure what I was looking for,”. You finish laying out the lace piece of lingerie and move your hands away.

“So what d’you think?”

Bucky is stunned speechless.

All three sets are beautiful in their own right.

On the leftmost side is a pale pink bra and panty set. The cups are made of a translucent material, decorated with embroidered flowers and tiny rhinestones that sparkle prettily when they catch the light. The matching panties are equally translucent, complete with tiny satin bows on the hips. They’re cut quite low and, judging from their size, would expose about half your ass. It’s a set that treads the fine line between ‘good girl’ and ‘seductress’.

The set on the right is the complete opposite of innocence. With it’s fiery red colour, it is definitely the most attention-grabbing, eye-catching set out of the three. The bra itself, if he can call it that, seems to be composed more of cut-outs, rather than actual fabric. By his best visualisation, Bucky pictures the floral appliqué on the cups just  _barely_ covering your nipples. Your breasts would be mostly bare, framed by an intricate network of red straps. Bucky finds himself having to reign in his over-active imagination, for fear that lingering too long on the image of you in this set could cause unwanted bodily reactions in his nether regions. There is marginally more coverage when it comes when it comes to the bottom half of this set, although the accompanying sexy garter belt isn’t doing much to tame his growing arousal.

But really, it’s the set in the middle that holds Bucky’s attention for the longest. There’s nothing overtly remarkable about the set, really. It’s black and, unlike the other two sets, seems to be made of a shiny, satiny material. It’s understated, yet elegant. The edge of the cups are trimmed with delicate eyelash lace; the same lace seems to make up the back of the bra too. There’s a small black gem dangling between the cups. The panties have more coverage than either of the other two sets, but the sides are composed entirely of lace and, when worn, would undoubtedly give an alluring peek at the skin of your hips.

Bucky gulps nervously. The black set reminds him of a night that he would rather forget.

No, that’s a lie.

He wants to remember the good parts of that night — the soft feel of your skin against his, the warmth of your touch, the fiery passion with which you’d made love. Bucky just wishes that those memories were not tainted with the internal conflict and guilt currently weighing heavy on his soul.

“Fucking hell,” Bucky breathes, breaking an eternity of silence.

“So?” you prompt, looking at him expectantly.

“I just…wow,” he murmurs, casting his gaze over the lingerie one more time.

You chuckle. “D’you like them?”

Bucky pauses for maybe a millisecond too long before answering.

“Steve’s gonna love whichever one you choose,” he replies, wisely deciding to avoid that question in its entirety, stepping to the side and giving it a wide berth.

Because the thing is — he  _does_ like them, perhaps a little more than is strictly appropriate. Bucky’d like them a lot more if they were on you, but he’s not about to admit that to anyone anytime soon.

Even so, he can’t do anything to turn off the slideshow of images tormenting his mind; the pink lace framing your breasts, your nipples peeking through the see-through cups, that bold red number accentuating your skin tone beautifully, and the alluring way that black set would highlight your natural form.  _God_ , it’s making him salivate just thinking about it. Bucky’s cock is beginning to chub up in his sweats, its interest piqued by the impure thoughts and vivid — borderline  _pornographic_ — images racing through his head.

His mother’s probably turning over in his grace, at this point, disgruntled by Bucky’s lack of self control.

 _Forgive me, mother, for I have sinned,_ he thinks ruefully.  _A lot. Far more than you’d’ve liked me to._

What sucks most of all is that Bucky  _knows_ that he shouldn’t be thinking of you like that. Not now, not ever, and especially not after KL.

——————————

Bucky wakes up with a start, momentarily disoriented.

The room is dark, save for the weak tendrils of moonlight streaming in through the open curtains. He’s naked, with his arm wrapped protectively around your waist and his face pressed to the crook of your neck. With every inhale, he’s taking in a fresh whiff of your scent.

Bucky hurriedly tugs his head away — more out of disgust with himself, as opposed to a reluctance to sleeping with you in his arms.

His neck cracks as he cranes it over your shoulder to check the alarm clock on the bedside table. Its bright red digital display tells him that it’s just after five in the morning. He’s been asleep for approximately two and a half hours, then.

The memories of what the two of you have just done come rushing back at full force, colliding with him in a tsunami-like wave of raw emotion. Bucky’s not sure exactly  _how_ he feels, let alone  _what_ he should be feeling, but what he  _does_ know is that he needs to clean this mess up before you wake up. If you happen to wake up and remember the events that transpired a couple of hours ago, then Bucky will meet that confrontation with his head held high and his shoulders squared.

On the chance that you  _don’t_ remember what happened, though…well, Bucky would like to try and keep things that way.

Bucky allows himself to press one last kiss to the back of your shoulder, memorising the softness of your skin against his lips. With a muted groan, Bucky rolls away, forcing himself to leave the warmth of the bed and the comfort of embracing you. He winces as the chill of the night pierces through his skin, the room suddenly feeling much colder without you pressed against his side.

He gets up and ducks into the ensuite, flicking on the light as he passes by the switch. Bucky grabs a washcloth from beside the sink, runs it underneath warm water, then wrings out the excess moisture. When he glances up, he catches his expression in the mirror and grimaces.

It is the face of a guilt-ridden sinner.

With a weary sigh, Bucky wipes himself down with the cloth, scrubbing away the dried residues of semen and bodily fluids. He rinses the cloth once more, pats himself dry with a fresh towel, then brings both out the the bedroom to clean you up. Bucky pads over to the bed and perches by your side, being careful to not jostle the bed too much, for fear of waking you. He works quickly and methodically, wiping down your back, thighs and pussy as thoroughly as he can without being too aggressive with his movements.

Once he’s done, he tosses the cloths into the bathroom, flicks off the bathroom lights, then strides over to his bag. Bucky pulls out a pair of sweats and slips them on, not bothering to put on underwear, before grabbing a clean pair of boxers and one of his t-shirts for you. Thankfully, you seem to be in a deep sleep, not stirring at all as Bucky slips you into his clothes. His heart wrenches momentarily at the sight of you in  _his_ things. Bucky pulls down the corner of the duvet, then carefully scoops you into his arms and moves you to the top of the bed. He tenses as you shift around and mumble sleepily but, to his relief, you don’t wake up. He sets you down, then pulls the blanket over you. For good measure, Bucky strips off the top sheet and stuffs it into the back of the closet, because it has a giant damp spot and smells vaguely of sex.

He flies around the room, picking up various items of discarded clothing. His shirt and pants get neatly folded and packed away into his duffel bad. The dress you were gets put on a hanger and hung up in the closet. Your lingerie — if those goddamn scraps of lace can even be  _called_ lingerie — he picks up and drops into the cloth laundry bag that you’ve been keeping by the bathroom door. He packs away his shoes but leaves your heels where they’ve fallen by the foot of the bed, thinking that they’re not doing much harm by being there.

Bucky stands by the door and does one last cursory sweep over the room, making sure that he hasn’t missed any detail that might seem overtly suspicious. Satisfied that he hasn’t, he takes one last look at your sleeping form (ignoring the small twinge in his heartstrings), smiles inwardly, then pulls the door shut.

As they say; when one door closes, another one opens, except the door the opens inside of him is less of a door and more akin to a gigantic floodgate. The emotions come crashing though his system in tumultuous waves and it’s Bucky can do to keep himself upright.

Bucky flops down onto the couch and twists onto his back, hands folded over his chest and eyes staring at the ceiling, unseeing.

He’s repulsed by himself. More so than he has ever been his entire life.

The early morning hour seems to be a good a time as any to contemplate his poor life decisions and that, it seems, is exactly what his brain chooses to do.

Back when all of this started, you and Bucky had sat down and laid out some ground rules with each other, because as everyone knows, establishing boundaries is a must. He runs through them like a checklist in his head.

Rule number one: no kissing each other on the lips. Yeah, he’s definitely broken that one — multiple times, at that. Without thinking, Bucky brings his hand up to his mouth, traces the swell of his lips with the tips of his fingers, trying to remember the precise way in which your mouth felt against his. Though he has no trouble memorising 16-digit passwords with only a sparing glance, Bucky finds that he’s having trouble recalling exactly how your his lips slotted together with yours, exactly how soft they were, exactly how delicious you’d tasted.

Maybe that’s for the best; the less he remembers, the less he’ll miss. There’s one thing he does knows for certain, though: he was dead on the inside, before his lips met yours.

Rule number two: no having sex whilst drunk or otherwise inebriated. Yep. No question as to whether or not that one’s been breached.

Bucky remembers letting out a surprised huffed when you’d suggested this rule, reminding you that due to his enhanced metabolism, getting drunk was not actually a possibility for him — this had happened at a time before he’d met Thor and been introduced to the wonders of Asgardian liquor. Your expression had turned solemn and you’d rested your hand on top of Bucky’s.

“I know you can’t get drunk, Buck, but  _I can_ ,” you told him, “And I know you’d never take advantage of me like that, but it’s better to get things clear now, right?”

His face contorts into a scowl at the memory. Taking advantage of you in your drunken state is, sadly enough, the smallest of his worries — the fact that he’s  _betrayed your trust_ is the bigger issue, from his perspective. It’s a fact that feels as heavy as a boulder, where it’s weighing on his conscience. Guilt twists its serrated knife into his stomach, sending ripples of pseudo-pain through his system.

Rule number three: no spending the night together after sex. For all the times that you and Bucky have fucked around, you’ve never actually  _slept_ with each other, in the conventional sense of the word. Much like the rule about no kissing, the no-sleeping-together rules was established because cuddling up in each other’s arms having just had sex seemed a tad bit too intimate for either of you to handle. Your fuck dates were literally just that: a good, satisfying fuck, before the two of you went off on your separate ways. Tonight was the first night that Bucky has ever allowed himself to fall asleep beside you and, whilst you  _technically_ didn’t spend the entire night together, there was definitely some sleeping in each other’s arms involved. And, as much as Bucky enjoyed it, it’s just another layer of complexity to add to the ever-growing confusion in Bucky’s head.

Rule number four: no unprotected sex, for obvious reasons. At least  _this_ one he didn’t fuck up as bad as he could’ve. Bucky had had enough wits about himself to remember to pull out at the last second, and he’s ninety-nine percent sure that you’re on birth control anyway, but still. The risk is always there, isn’t it? As nice as it would’ve been —  _god_  he can only imagine how sinfully good it would’ve been — to allow himself to finish inside you, Bucky knows that he did the right thing. The pleasure would have been short-lived and his level of self-hatred would be an order of magnitude larger than what they currently are.

There is one more rule, however, never spoken aloud or explicitly addressed by either of you, but embedded in the very nature of Bucky’s relationship with you: no romantic feelings. The two of you were supposed to be  _friends_ with benefits, nothing more.

Look how royally well Bucky’s fucked  _that_ one up.

 _Conclusion?_ prompts the pessimistic voice in the back of his head.

“I’m a failure,” he breathes, talking to the empty room.

A failure. An abject failure. A disappointment in every sense of the word.

A disconcerting feeling of misery worms its way into his bones.  _You’ve fucked shit up before, Barnes, but never as bad as this_ , he scolds himself.

With a resigned groan, Bucky rolls onto his side, turning to face the back of the couch, pillowing his head on his flesh arm. Though he prays for sleep to take him back into its clutches, that doesn’t seem like something that’ll be happening anytime soon. His mind is exhausted, the thoughts he’s been having and the secrets he’s been keeping finally taking their toll on him mentally. But at the same time, he feels wide awake, a million and one things galloping through the space between his ears at a frantic pace.

As time drags on, thoughts of you eventually get replaced by thoughts of Steve. Specifically, thoughts of how Bucky has let down the one person he swore he would never fail.

Steve is…there’re no words adequate enough to describe how incredibly important Steve is to Bucky. Not just as a friend, not just as someone who helped him adjust to the wonders and perils of this strange new world, not just as a connection to the past but because he’s — Steve. Good old, dependable Steve, who has never failed to come through for Bucky when he needed him to.

Bucky swallows anxiously. He doesn’t know if he has the guts to tell Steve about this. He owes it to his best pal, he knows this is true, but…knowing things doesn’t inherently make you braver. And Bucky doesn’t have much bravery to begin with.

Bucky is paralysed by indecision. There are a thousand and one ways in which things could go when you finally wake up, but he’s not entirely sure which one of those ways is his best case scenario. From Bucky’s point of view, for him, there isn’t one. There is no version of reality in which Bucky emerges victorious. He’s going to come off worse in some way, whether or not you remember, whether or not he plucks up the courage to tell Steve. Never a winner, always a loser.

Never the hero, always the sinner.

So yes. It’s cowardly, of this he is fully aware, but he hopes to the dear Lord in heaven that you don’t remember a thing when you wake up in the morning.

 _But god, what if you do?_ he frets.  _What if you tell Steve? Or—worse, what if you don’t?_

Can Bucky live with himself, knowing that he’s carrying around a secret as big as the fucking sun, a secret so immense it could demolish the very foundations upon which his sanity depends on? Equally, can he ever truly be himself without Steve?

Bucky feels that at this point, it’s no longer a question of head battling over heart. There are a multitude of voices creating a dissonant cacophony inside his head; they’re threatening to crack his skull open with the racket they’re creating. He feels like the universe is playing a twisted game of tug of war with his mind, threatening to split his identity in two — on the one hand, he knows he should ‘fess up and admit to his mistakes. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to lose the trust of the two people he loves most.

He doesn’t know what’s worse. You not remembering a thing, or you remembering something — maybe by putting the pieces of the puzzle together — and accusing Bucky of rape. He’s going to get hurt no matter the outcome. It’s just a matter of which kind of hurt is more tolerable.

Bucky sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose with his metal fingers. There’s a deafeningly loud din inside his brain right now, and the beginnings of a migraine are starting to throb in the back of his head. Though he’s too wired to sleep, he forces himself to focus on the steady rise and fall of his chest, slowly grounding himself which each breath he takes.

There’s not much he can do about anything at this point, he muses. Whatever happens, happens. Bucky comes to the conclusion that he will confront the truth if it comes to greet him. That is, if you ask him outright whether or not the two of you had sex, he’ll not deny the fact that you did. Whatever the end result of that admission may be, he’ll tell you the truth. But, if you don’t bring up the subject, Bucky’s not going to be the one to broach the topic.

When sleep finally overtakes him, it’s uneasy. Flickers of half-formed nightmares brush along the edges of his mind, enshrouding him in an oppressive, inescapable sense of terror. He can’t shake it off no matter how hard he tries. He sees your face, he sees Steve’s face, he hears snippets of half-formed conversations, but he can’t—

Bucky jolts awake.

He groans as he rolls onto his back, stretching his arms above his head to work out the kinks in his shoulders. The clock on the wall tells him that it’s a little after eight. He probably fell asleep at around six. With the level of fatigue his body’s feeling, it’s a wonder he’s functioning at all.

The door to the bedroom creaks open. Bucky stills.

You come shuffling out, swathed in a fluffy hotel bathrobe with a distinctly grumpy look on your face.

“Hey,” Bucky whispers, slowly pushing himself up into a sitting position. He scoots over to one end of the couch and folds his legs underneath him. You flop gracelessly onto the other end of the couch, turning your body so that you’re facing away from the windows and the sunlight they’re letting in. You grunt out a good morning in return.

“Not feeling so good?” Bucky asks. His heart is racing, hammering manically against his ribs. He hopes that it’s not loud enough for you to hear.

“Headache. Not so bad,” you mumble. You pull your face away from the couch cushions and look at him through narrowed eyes. “What happened?”

Bucky legitimately believes that his heart might just give out on him.

“How much—,” his voice comes out croaky, so he clears his throat and tries again. “How much d’you remember from last night?”

You grunt noncommittally. “Not a lot,” you reply, your voice throaty and a little hoarse. “One moment I was raving, the next moment I’m waking up in bed,”.

Bucky’s insides are doing sickening flips. Relief is spreading through his veins, dampened by a faint hint of misery. “Oh, um…you don’t remember how you got home? Or afterwards?” he asks tentatively. Sure, this line of enquiry has a high chance of raising your suspicions, but dammit, he needs to know how much you know.

You shake your head but stop abruptly, wincing at the jarring motion. “No. Don’t ‘member much,”.

Bucky breathes out an internal sigh of relief.

“Actually, I do remember—,”

His heart forgets how to beat.

“— _vaguely_ us getting into a cab. And then I have a flash of you carrying me through the lobby,” you muse.

Bucky wills his overactive body to calm down. He licks his lips nervously. “That all? That’s the last memory you have?” he pushes.

“Mmm, I think so,”. A pause, then, “Why? What did I do?” you ask, narrowing your eyes in suspicion.  

“Uh—,” Bucky flails, racking his mind for a realistic-sounding answer. “Nothin’, nothin’ happened, just tryna figure out how drunk you were,”.

“Haven’t gotten black-out drunk in a long time,” you mutter, scrubbing your hand over your face as you burrow further into the cushions, tugging the lapels of the bathrobe over your chest. “Tell me what I missed?”

Bucky swallows. His mind goes through one last-ditch battle between wrong and…questionably right, his indecisive conscience trying to decide whether or not he’s going to tell you what  _really_  went down last night.

“Um, we…left the club around one,” he says slowly, “I called a cab, brought you to the room, and that’s about it,”.

“How’d I get into your clothes?” you ask.

The hairs on the back of Bucky’s neck rise in response to the alarm bells blaring in his head. He chances a quick glance at you to read your expression; your eyes are closed and there’s nothing about your body language that indicates that you’re particularly suspicious. Bucky hopes that your question is just that: an innocent question.

“I, uh…I handed you some of my things and then you must have changed yourself,” he lies, “You left your dress on the floor so I hung it up,”.

“Mm, thanks,” you murmur.

“No trouble,”.

“Anything else?” you prompt.

Bucky hesitates, chewing on the inside of his lip as another flare of indecision spreads through the back of his mind. He could be brave, and tell you — in fact, he  _should_ be brave and tell you, he owes you his honesty, having done shit all with your trust — but he’s terrified of the consequences. Bucky thinks he can just about live with the knowledge that you have no recollection of what was undoubtedly one of the best nights of his life.

He doesn’t think he can live bearing the shame of your disapproval.

He hesitates for a few seconds too long.

“What?” you ask sharply, lifting your head to squint your eyes at him. “I did something stupid, didn’t I?”

Bucky curses himself mentally for his hesitation.

“Uh, no—you didn’t,” he says hastily.

You stretch out your leg and poke him in the thigh with your foot. “I so did, I can see it in your expression!” you protest, “C’mon, tell me,”.

Bucky hopes that you’re too off your game this morning to catch the way his skin has turned pale with worry. ‘Stupid’ is probably a euphemism for the shit that went down last night.

Of course he’s not going to admit that, though.

“You didn’t do anything!” he insists.

A hint of fear and nervousness flicker over your expression. “Seriously Barnes, how bad was it?” you ask, “What’d I do?”

You don’t seem to be inclined to drop the subject anytime soon, so Bucky roots around in the back of his head in search of a vaguely plausible story. “I ain’t gonna tell you,” Bucky sing-songs tauntingly, deciding to allow himself to be swept along with this lie. He’ll try and tease you for as long as possible, but himself as much time as he can to cook up something believable.

“Fuck you,” you growl halfheartedly, sitting up a little straighter as you shoot Bucky a murderous glare. “You’re gonna hold this over me forever, aren’t you?”

“Yup,” Bucky replies, popping the ‘p’ in a manner he knows will definitely irritate you. It’s so much easier like this, he thinks, teasing each other and pretending like everything’s okay. It’s not a long-term solution by any means, but pretending’s so much easier when the reality is that Bucky is just heartbeats away from an internal breakdown.

“Tell me!” you whine, “C’mon, Bucky, just fuckin’ tell me what I did,”.

“I’m not gonna—oof!”

Without warning, you leap across the couch — no small feat, given the hangover you must be sporting — and mercilessly attack Bucky’s ribs with your fingers. He lets out an undignified yelp, squirming to get away from you as you tickle his sides. Bucky dissolves into a fit of helpless giggles.

“Okay!” he concedes, half-shouting in his delirious state. “‘’kay, okay, stop it, Y/N!”.

Bucky places both his hands on your shoulders and pushes you back. You give him one sharp pinch on the stomach, before sitting back on your haunches.

“Ah—Jesus, cut your nails, woman,” Bucky grumbles, rubbing at the spot indignantly. You arch an eyebrow, waiting for an explanation. Bucky sighs, giving his full body into the action, exaggerating the rise and fall of his shoulders a little.

“You were telling me what you wanted to do to Steve on your wedding night,” Bucky says, “In full HD detail, I might add,”.

You groan, flopping against the back of the couch and throwing an arm over your eyes dramatically. “Really? I said that?”.

“Mmmhmm,” Bucky says, nodding his head sagely. “You were telling me about your plans to suck his soul out through his—,”

“Okay!” you interrupt, holding up a finger to silence him, “Don’t need to know what drunken me decided to come up with,”.

Bucky snorts. “Drunken you actually came up with some pretty good ideas,” he says solemnly.

You sigh heavily, lifting your arm up a little so that you can look at Bucky with one eye. “Let’s just agree to not tell Steve about last night, okay?”

Bucky’s heart shrivels up in his chest.

_Shit. Steve._

The guilt comes back to hit him like an icy-cold slap to the face.

What hurts most is not the fact that he has to lie to you, or to Steve, although those two issues do contribute to the pain; it’s the fact that last night for you means something entirely different to what it means for Bucky. It’s the fact that you clearly have no memory whatsoever of last night’s passionate, heated tryst. It’s the fact that you clearly have no memory whatsoever of the one time Bucky gave himself to you completely. It’s the fact that you clearly have no memory whatsoever of the only time Bucky’s ever confessed his love for you aloud.

With luck on his side — though in fairness, with the way his life’s been going recently, that seems like a slim chance — you’ll remain in this state of oblivion.

But still. It hurts.

 _It’s better this way_ , he tells himself, nodding at you when you murmur something about going to have a shower as you get off the couch. It means that things are less messy between you and Bucky, between you and Steve — it’s the ultimate sacrifice, an act of pure utilitarianism. Giving up the happiness — and by extent, sanity — of one for the sake of many others. Sure, a secret that weighs about as much as a baby elephant is being added to the suffocating burden already on Bucky’s shoulders, but still. It’s worth it.

If it keeps you happy, if it keeps Steve happy, then it’s worth it.

——————————

“Bucky?” you murmur, reaching out to rest a hand delicately on his forearm. “Are you…what’s up?”

He gives you a tight smile, roughly shaking his head to clear the thoughts plaguing his mind, trying to centre himself back in the present. The three sets of lingerie are staring back at him, tauntingly inviting with their lace and embroidered details.

“Nothin’,” Bucky croaks out, taking a few steadying breaths through his nose.

“Bullshit, Barnes,” you scoff, pulling away and moving to pack the sets back into their box. “Look, sorry, let’s just—forget about it, I shouldn’t have—,”

“No, it’s okay,” Bucky says, his flesh hand darting out to catch your shoulder, “I just…that…triggered a memory that was…difficult,”. For once in his life, Bucky’s telling the truth.

“Oh Bucky,” you whisper, understanding flickering in your eyes. “Bucky, what you—no, that wasn’t your fault, okay? No matter what it is you did all those years…that wasn’t you, that was them,”.

_What?_

It takes his mind a second to catch up to what you’re implying. He tries not to let the sudden understanding show on his face. You think he’s talking about…a difficult memory from his time as the Soldier. Huh. He goes along with it, because at least this lie is easier to play along with than the truth.

“I…know,” he sighs, “I still did it though,”. His insides churn uneasily over the fact that he’s lying to you — again, for at least the billionth time this month.

You cluck sympathetically, resting your hand over his flesh one and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Bucky—,”.

“Just…drop it, Y/N, okay?” Bucky says tiredly, his tone inviting no further conversation.

You purse your lips in disapproval, but nod in understanding, respecting Bucky’s request.

He reaches a hand out to finger the satiny-smooth cups of the black bra. “This one,” he murmurs, flicking his gaze up to catch your eyes. “This one’s the one. Steve’s gonna love you in it,”.

You beam at him gratefully, before surging forward, throwing your arms around his neck. Bucky’s caught off-guard, inhaling sharply at the sudden proximity of his body to yours. He doesn’t dare to hug you back, for fear that he might never be able to let you go.

“Thank you, Bucky,” you whisper, “I’m sorry for—yeah. But thank you,”.

“Thank me? For what?” Bucky asks, as you pull away. His brows knit together in confusion.

You smile, “For being you. You’re the greatest, Buck,”.

 _You wouldn’t think of me like that if you knew what I’ve done_ , he thinks darkly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reblog this chapter on [tumblr!](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/167976817190/a-messed-up-place-eight/)


	10. NINE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mission goes very, very, wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter specific warnings: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. BLOOD AND GORE AND VIOLENCE (it’s a battle scene, y’all). Kind of graphic? Tread with caution, anyhow.
> 
> I apologise in advance to your hearts. Although, in hindsight, I don't think 'sorry' is enough.

“There’s two weeks left to the wedding and I still have to write a goddamn speech,” Nat grouses, plopping herself onto a kitchen stool and bringing her coffee mug to her lips.

“There’s two weeks left to the wedding and I still need to find a  _bridesmaid’s dress_ ,” Wanda groans, gazing mournfully into her cereal.

Sam sighs, rubs the back of his hand over his eyes sleepily. “There’s two weeks left—,”

“Don’t you say anything, Wilson,” Bucky growls threateningly, sending Sam a vicious side-glare.

“I was gonna say two weeks left before all this fuss is over!” Sam protests, holding one hand up in defeat. “Go make your oatmeal, old man,”.

“Fuck you,” Bucky grumbles, turning his attention back to the stove and stirring his breakfast around with a wooden spoon.

It’s Saturday morning brunch time at the compound. This is one of those rare weekends in which everyone is on-site and not halfway across the world on some mission or other. Bucky’s fixing himself some oatmeal, and will probably do some eggs, or maybe pancakes after. He’s feeling hungry this morning and what the hell — it’s brunch.

“Two weeks and then Steve will stop being a low-key bridezilla,” Sam murmurs absentmindedly, as he pops a couple of pieces of bread into the toaster. “Or is it groomzilla? Does that even exist?”

Wanda chuckles.

There are indeed exactly 14 days left before your wedding and Bucky…is not exactly sure how he feels about that. He’s got his suit dry-cleaned, his dress shoes polished and a speech half-written, because he’s Steve’s best man, but something feels off. He’s not as joyful about the occasion as he probably should be — and understandably so, in his opinion.

“Bucky, could you hand me my coffee?” Wanda asks sweetly.

Bucky turns back to look at her over his shoulder. She gazes back at him with wide eyes and bats her lashes pitifully.

“Fine,” Bucky grumbles, leaning across the countertop to pick up Wanda’s pink mug before handing it to her. “But only ‘cause your ankle is injured. M’not going soft on you,”.

Wanda rolls her eyes. “You’re not going soft on me, you’re going soft on everyone,” she retorts.

“Hey!” Bucky protests.

Everyone looks up as heavy footfalls thud down the corridor. Steve strides briskly into the kitchen, tablet tucked under one arm and jaw set in a grim line. Bucky is immediately on edge; the expression on Steve’s face does not bode well. Bucky switches off the stove and turns around to face Steve, leaning his hip against the countertop.

“We’ve got a situation,” Steve says, his tone clipped.

The atmosphere in the room immediately changes. All traces of grogginess evaporate. The room snaps to attention.

“What is it, Cap?” asks Sam.

Steve purses his lips as he whips out his tablet, turning it on and tapping some buttons on the display.

“I’m sending you a briefing pack now,” he explains, “Biochemical facility in Kinshasa — government-funded, pretty buried in the books — was fully evacuated two hours ago. No confirmed reason as to why,”.

“Why’re we concerned about it?” Wanda asks, looking at Steve curiously.

“Intel suspects a chemical leak,” Steve answers.

“Do we know what kind?” asks Nat, crossing her arms over her chest.

“That’s the thing,” Steve sighs, raking his fingers through his hair, “They’re a biochemical research centre, but behind that front they’re rumoured to be developing bio-weapons for use in the military,”.

“Shit,” Sam mutters, “I don’t like where this is going,”.

“Me neither,” Steve admits, “Funded by the government — of the DRC, no less — so who knows what they’ve got going on in there. Intel says there’s a strong possibility of the leak being a gaseous neurotoxin,”.

“So gas masks, then,” Bucky murmurs, mostly to himself. He winces internally at the idea. He doesn’t like wearing gas masks — or masks of any kind, for that matter. They remind him of the restrictive muzzle that his handlers made him wear.

Steve’s eyes flick to his, grim understanding in those bright blue irises. “Yeah. We’re not taking any chances,”.

“What’s the call, Cap?” asks Sam.

“Our priority is to determine whether or not there is a leak and if so, contain it as much as possible,” Steve replies, setting his tablet on the kitchen island and resting his palms on the edge of the counter. “Intel states full evac, but it can’t hurt to give a cursory sweep. Sam, Nat, Bucky, you’re coming with me—,”

“Hey!” Wanda interrupts.

“Wanda, you’ve injured your ankle,” Steve says, voice unforgivingly commanding.

“It’s practically healed,” she whines, “I can—,”

“I’m sorry, but we can’t risk it,” says Steve, his tone inviting no further protests. “We could use your help, but I don’t want to risk aggravating your injury,”.

“Fine,” Wanda grumbles, pouting and crossing her arms over her chest. Bucky smirks, despite himself.

“Anyway, like I mentioned, they said this was a full evac,” Steve continues, “Which means no personnel guarding the facility itself. We bust in, sweep the site, get out as soon as possible. Leak is supposed to be coming from south wing, basement two, lab 4. Blueprints are included in the briefing pack,”.

“This pack seems very skimpy on the info, Steve,” Nat comments, as she thumbs through the documents on her phone. There’s a small crease between her perfectly manicured brows.

Steve sighs. “I know. S’not a lot to work with, but if it  _is_ a neurotoxin leak, then we need to jump on it as soon as possible,”.

“So what’re we waiting for?” asks Bucky, pushing away from the counter.

Sam clasps his hands together and rubs them excitedly. “Avengers, assem—,”

“No,” Nat interrupts sharply, glaring at Sam through narrowed eyes. “We do not say those words,”.

Steve chuckles. “Suit up, guys. Wheel up in 15,”.

———————————

Bucky downs his — somewhat cold — oatmeal in four and a half mouthfuls, then makes his way over to his weapons locker. Everyone living in the compound has one of their own. It’s something of a glorified storage room, filled with an assortment of guns, knives, grenades and whatever toys Stark decides to put together.

Of course, Bucky keeps some of his gear stashed in various hiding places in his room, and around the compound in general — a guy’s gotta be able to defend himself in the event of a surprise attack — but the majority of his things are kept in his locker room, under lock and key. It’s an unassuming door, marked with a simple grey plaque with ‘Barnes’ inscribed on it in black font. He punches in his key code, lets FRIDAY do the biometric scans, then twists open the handle.

He pulls on his uniform with a comforting familiarity, tightening straps and snapping buckles into place. His gear is nowhere near as tight and unforgiving as what HYDRA forced him to wear, but still protective in its own right. Bucky runs his fingers over his — disturbingly large — collection of knives and picks out the few he wants to bring with him, tucking them into various hiding places on his form. He tucks a couple of guns into their holsters, slides a couple of grenades into his utility belt and finally, secures his hair back into a neat bun.

Satisfied with his preparedness, he opens the door to his locker room, about to step out into the hallway.

He pauses.

Steve is on the other side of the door, his back to Bucky. He’s fully suited up, sans his harness and shield. Bucky notes with approval that he’s wearing the navy suit. Good. More stealthy. The red might be Cap, but it’s too flashy for Bucky’s liking. He’s speaking in hushed tones to someone. When Steve shifts to the side a little, Bucky gets a glimpse of your hair. Bucky hastily ducks back into his locker room, pulling the door closed after him. He doesn’t close it all the way, though, allowing him to listen in on the conversation.

“…coming with you!” you’re saying.

“No, sweetheart,” Steve sighs, “You can’t—,”.

“Like hell I can’t, Rogers,” you hiss. “If this is a neurotoxin leak, my immune system could resist it!”

“Yes, but you’ve not got enough experience, honey,” Steve says, tone calm and placating.

“But I could—,”

“I know, but you’ve not had enough training with  _us_ as a  _team_ ,” Steve explains, “Bucky and Nat and Sam have come with me on hundreds of missions — we’re like a machine, at this point. And, for a mission like this, with limited intel and one hell of a time crunch, I—I just don’t have time to come up with a proper attack strategy, so you just can’t come. I’m sorry,”.

You sigh heavily, tipping your head forward to rest your forehead on Steve’s muscled bicep. “I know,” you sigh, “I just wish you didn’t have to,”.

Bucky takes that as a good enough opportunity for him to step out. “Bad guys really don’t have any consideration whatsoever for superhero weddings, huh?” he remarks.

You and Steve pull apart, a tight smile on both your faces. “Evil waits for no one,” Steve quips. He turns to you, gaze softening as he hooks his arm over your shoulders. “You can come with us next time, ‘kay?”

“Fine,” you grumble. The corner of your lips twitch into a smile when Steve presses a kiss to your temple.

Something inside Bucky’s chest tightens.

Bucky  _would_  say that it’s his heart, but his heart doesn’t really exist anymore.

“Just don’t do anything stupid, punk,” you mutter, petting Steve on the cheek affectionately. “Least not ’til you get back,”.

Bucky snorts. It seems that some of his overprotectiveness has rubbed off on you.

Steve chuckles, catching Bucky’s gaze and shooting him a mock glare, before turning his attention back to you. “How can I?” he replies, “M’ leaving all the stupid here with you,”.

You jaw falls open in feigned surprise as you give Steve a playful swat on the arm. Bucky laughs, amused by your antics. You catch Bucky’s eyes and give him a tender smile, a hint of wistfulness in your gaze.

“You keep safe too, okay, Buck?” you murmur, reaching your free hand out to touch Bucky’s shoulder. “I need my groom and my best man around for this wedding to happen,”.

Again, that weird tightening feelings comes over Bucky’s chest.

“Sure doll,” Bucky replies, placing his hand on top of yours and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll do our best,”.

———————————

It’s a bust mission.

It’s a  _fucking bust mission_.

That’s all Bucky can think of as he ducks behind an overturned desk, in order to shield himself from the onslaught of bullets raining down on him.

To be fair, it hadn’t started off as a bust mission.

The facility had indeed been abandoned when the team arrived; not a human soul around for miles. The sun had long disappeared from the sky when the wheels of the quinjet touched the ground, approximately four kilometres south of the facility. The plant itself is located several miles northeast of Kinshasa, on the periphery of the Congo rainforest. After doing their final weapons checks, the team had trekked through the forest, entering the compound via the main gate, since they hadn’t needed to be particularly stealthy with their entry.

The layout of the facility is rather simple. Each wing is shaped like a hollowed-out square, with a grassed courtyard in the centre of each one. Offices, laboratories and storage rooms are arranged on the out-facing wall, whilst essential wiring and plumbing has been built into the wall that overlooks the courtyard. It’s a rather drab building, all hard edges and bland concrete. The compound is split into a north and south wing, each four floors high; two aboveground, two below ground.

Once inside, the team had split up. Sam and Nat had gone downstairs in search of the lab, so as to determine whether or not a leak had taken place. Bucky and Steve had covered the first and ground floors, with the two aims of firstly, ensuring that no civilians were still trapped in the building and secondly, determining whether or not there were places where a gas could have escaped the confines of the building.

Things had been going to plan, up until about five minutes ago, when the entire facility was plunged into darkness.

Never a good sign.

Before Steve could even call Sam and Nat to reconvene, ominous clanking noises had rattled through the building. Panels on the wall had retracted, revealing the mounted machine guns hiding behind them.

Aforementioned guns are currently raining hellfire on Bucky and Steve.

A trap. They’ve walked straight into a trap. And, if they’re not smart about it, it’s going to be a one-way trip.

“Sam? Nat?” Steve shouts, yelling into the comm piece on his wrist.

“Kinda busy here, Cap,” Sam huffs. In the background, Bucky catches the rhythmic rat-tat-tat of gunfire. Then again, that could just be the guns on his end.

“Is it safe to remove gas masks?” Steve yells, dodging left behind an office desk as a spray of bullets narrowly misses his ear.

“Yeah. There’s no leak, Cap,” Nat says crisply.

 _Thank fucking god_.

Bucky rips off his constrictive gas mask and slides it across the floor, away from him. “I’m gonna fucking kill this intel person!” Bucky shouts to Steve, as he moves into a crouching position behind the desk.

“Not if I get there first!” Steve yells back.

“We were fucking played,” Sam grunts, “Fuckin’ played,”.

Bucky shakes his head in frustration. He can think about killing intelligence personnel when he’s gotten them out of this life-or-death situation. For now, he closes his eyes and listens to the rhythm of the bullets as they’re spewed from the guns. He didn’t manage to count how many there guns he’s dealing with before he was forced to take cover, but he estimates that there must be at least six on this corridor alone.

It’s a situation that fucking sucks. He and Steve are on the topmost floor of the north wing, which is comprised entirely of offices. Sam and Natasha are about as far away as they can be, in basement two of the south wing. The team has been split up and it’s going to be one hell of a challenge to make it back to each other without being ripped to shreds by these bullets.

Bucky takes a deep breath and forces himself to think logically. The guns currently firing at him and Steve are mounted on the wall facing the row of offices. Each gun is fully automated and must be mounted on some sort of pivot, in order to be able to swing from left to right. Bucky studies the wall behind him, which is steadily becoming riddled with bullet holes. The holes themselves seem to be in a fairly consistent band, thereby indicating that the guns have a limited range of movement; they’re only moving from side-to-side, and not up-and-down. There also seems to be something of a blind spot between each gun, because there’s a thin column of wall which has not been chewed up by bullets whatsoever.

Perfect. That makes his life easier.

That means that Bucky only needs to worry about the gun directly in front of him. He times how long it takes for the bullets to move from right to left, then back again. 12 seconds, tops.

Bucky pulls out a knife from the sheath on his thigh, feeling its weight in his palm. He twists his body, preparing himself to launch from behind the desk at full force when the window of opportunity presents itself. Bucky waits until the bullet spray has passed the leftmost extreme of its arch then jumps, vaulting over the desk like the graceful assassin he is. He sprints like a madman for the gun mounted on the opposite side of the corridor.

Bucky leaps onto the wall above it to save himself from being clipped by a bullet, then jams his knife into the turning the mechanism, so as to stop the gun from being able to rotate. Once he’s immobilised it, Bucky grips the barrel in his metal arm and physically wrenches it upwards, deforming the metal into a ninety degree angle. The machine lets out a few half-aborted clicks before sputtering out completely.

Bucky removes his knife from the pivot and is about to leg it to the next mounted gun when all of a sudden, the gunfire ceases. His ears ring with the ghostly echo of gunshots.

“What…the hell just happened?” asks Sam.

“Bucky disabled one of the guns,” Steve replies smoothly, appearing from behind the mangled desk he used as cover, one wrist held up to his mouth. “Whether or not that’s connected to the rest of them stopping I don’t know, but that’s what’s happened,”. As he speaks, Steve swings his shield around and clips it into the harness on his back.

His shield. His vibranium shield. The one that’s bulletproof.

“Hey, why couldn’t you have handled the gun dismantling?” Bucky asks, as he dusts himself off and re-sheathes his knife. “You got that shiny shield of yours to protect you for a reason, right?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Too tight a space and too many bullets flying ‘round. The ricochet could’ve hit you. ‘Sides, I didn’t have enough room to swing it properly,”.

“Excuses, excuses,” Bucky grumbles.

“Boys,” Nat interjects, “I don’t think Barnes crippling one gun would’ve shut down the entire system,”.

“And I take it you did nothing on your end, Romanoff?” Bucky asks, as he and Steve begin to cautiously make their way back to the stairwell at the end of the corridor.

“We did nothing,” she confirms.

“And it’s not ‘cause they ran out of ammo, either,” Sam adds. Bucky glances to his right as they pass one of the guns. Wilson’s right.

“So…what?” asks Bucky, “You saying someone shut it down?”

“The question is: who?” Steve murmurs softly, a tense note to his voice. A vein in his neck twitches and his jaw is tightly clenched. He bring his wrist comm to his mouth, “Sam, Nat, if you’re finished downstairs, meet us on the ground floor. Bucky and I will—,”.

He gets cut off by the sound of shattering glass.

Bucky curses and drops into a defensive crouch, a knife appearing in his flesh hand, his metal hand hovering above the holster on his thigh.

“Cap? Barnes? What’s going on?” Sam asks worriedly.

Though the hallway is in darkness save for the measly emergency lights signalling the fire escapes at either end of the corridor, Bucky can still tell that there are several big, burly, heavily-armed agents climbing in through the smashed window and stalking towards him and Steve.

“We’ve got company,” he grits out.

“Who are you?” Steve calls.

Nobody answers. What a surprise.

Because of the darkness, Bucky can’t tell exactly what kind of gear they’ve got on, but if they’re storming into a place like this to fight four of earth’s mightiest heroes, then it’s not unreasonable to expect full body protection. The standard stuff: ballistic vests, probably with a steel plate inserted. If this is a planned attack — which, judging by the coincidental timing of everything, seems to be quite likely — they’ve probably got night vision goggles too. He can’t tell how many agents there are exactly, but a conservative estimate would be about a dozen.

“Yeah, we’ve got company too,” Sam announces.

“Priority is to get out of here alive,” Steve replies calmly, “Don’t do anything stupid,”.

“Copy that, Cap,”.

As Steve hooks his shield onto his arm, he catches Bucky’s gaze.

“You ready for this, pal?” Bucky asks, as the shadowed figures steadily advance.

Steve rolls his shoulders back and holds his shield up in front of him. “I can do this all day,” he replies. He gives Bucky a curt nod, and then—

—they charge forward, as fast as a lightning strike, hoping to take the agents by surprise. Gunshots ring out in the cramped hallway.

Whilst these agents might have the upper-hand in terms of artillery power and night-vision goggles, Bucky’s got enhanced speed and agility, not to mention decades of combat experience. These agents, although clearly not untrained or lacking in experience, are simply no match for Bucky, let alone Bucky and Steve combined. He switches his mind to autopilot, letting his body run mostly on pure, adrenaline-fuelled instinct. It’s not the same blank, cold and ruthless headspace he fell into when he operated as the Soldier, but neither is it dissimilar — Bucky thinks of it as him fighting like the Soldier with a conscience. Bucky works efficiently, methodically darting between bodies, slamming his knives into muscled thighs and between pieces of body armour. He pushes off from the wall and uses the momentum to slash the throat of one of the agents. Bucky will always prefer using his knives in close-combat situations like these; they’re practically an extension of his arms, at this point.

Although Bucky’s focus is mostly on keeping himself out of harm’s way, he’s always got five percent of his mind listening out for Steve, making sure that the punk’s not gotten into too much trouble. They work like a well-oiled engine, the pair of them, having had so much experience charging into battle side-by-side. Inseparable, they are, and whatever bullshit the Smithsonian decided to come up with when describing the two of them together.

To be fair, the words aren’t  _entirely_ untrue.

Somewhere off to his right, Bucky catches the  _clang_ as Steve’s shield collides with someone’s helmet. He smirks inwardly as the agent on the receiving end of that blow yowls in agony.

Bucky grunts as an agent slams the butt of their rifle into his sternum. In those precious milliseconds where he is momentarily winded, the agent presses forward, backing Bucky into the wall, punch after punch colliding with his ribs. Bucky grits his teeth and clenches his metal hand into a fist, ready to knock the lights out of this bastard. Anticipating this, the agent twists them to the ground, kneeling on Bucky’s metal arm to pin it down. The metal plates whirr and click in protest. Blows continue to be rained down upon him.

The agent is an idiot for not knocking the knife out of Bucky’s other hand.

Though Bucky is busy trying to dodge the man’s punches, he somehow manages to embed his blade into the man’s shoulder, causing him to fall off Bucky, howling in anguish.

Bucky silences him with a deft flick of the wrist.

There are fewer footfalls now, in the corridor, indicating that most of the agents are either dead or incapacitated. Fallen bodies litter the ground, creating a human obstacle course, of sorts. Some parts of the floor are slippery with blood.

Heavy grunting noises waft down from the other end of the corridor. Bucky assumes that Steve is not, in fact, having sex with one of these agents and therefore, could be in need of help. He heads over there to check if he can be of any assistance. Judging by the heavy thuds and thumps coming from that side of the corridor, their grapple must be pretty intense. Bucky jogs a little bit faster to the source of the sounds.

Steve has gotten himself pinned into something of a sticky situation when Bucky gets there. He’s on his back with the agent’s legs around his neck in a chokehold. One of Steve’s hands is shoved between his neck and the agent’s thigh, trying to edge it away from him. The fingers of his other hand are scrabbling for the knife he’s strapped to his outer thigh.

Bucky sighs.

This seems to be the last agent standing and the sooner they dispose of him, the sooner they can go check on Nat and Sam. Bucky adjusts his grip on his knife, takes aim and, with a smooth flick of his wrist, embeds the blade into the side of the man’s throat. His legs go slack immediately.

Steve shoves the hulking brute off his body and takes in a deep gulp of air. He looks around wildly, catches sight of Bucky and breathes out a sigh of relief.

“Why do I always have to finish your fights for you, Rogers?” Bucky drawls, wiping his blades on the heel of his boot before tucking them back into their sheaths.

“I had him on the ropes,” Steve sighs, readjusting his helmet as he gets to his feet. He picks up his shield from where it has fallen on the floor, slinging back into its harness.

“Sure you did,” Bucky says dryly.

“Did we get all of ‘em?” Steve asks, glancing around the corridor. In the darkness, it’s hard to tell exactly, but Bucky’s fairly certain that every agent is permanently out of action. There’s no telltale moaning or groaning of someone in pain. Nonetheless, he strains his ears, listening for a hitched breath, or subdued footfalls, or perhaps even the click of a gun cocking.

He hears nothing of the sort.

“Think so,” Bucky replies quietly.

“C’mon. Let’s find Sam and Nat, then get the hell outta here,”.

“For once in your life, Rogers, you’re talking sense,”.

Bucky stalks ahead of Steve, rifle drawn and senses heightened. He picks his way through the corridor littered with bodies, taking care not to slip in any pools of blood. Behind him, Bucky hears Steve matching his every footstep, covering his six. They head towards the stairwell at the far end of this wing, so that they can cross into the adjacent one and find Nat and Sam.

Something whistles past Bucky’s ear.

He tenses. There’s a beeping noise that sounds distinctly like a—

“Bomb!” Steve yells, shoving Bucky forward just heartbeats before an ear-shattering explosion rips through the building. The force of the blast sends him sprawling backwards. He collides with the wall with a sickening crunch. It’s very possible that he fractures a rib.

He’s disoriented for several precious seconds as the dust settles around him. He coughs, wincing as the motion jars something in his chest. There’s an incessant ringing in both his ears. His hearing’s muffled, probably because his ear drums have been severely damaged. They’ll heal up in a few minutes; he knows this from experience. Bucky squints his eyes, trying to see through the debris and darkness, in order to locate Steve.

The blast was concentrated, making it all the more powerful. It seems to have not compromised the structural integrity of the building itself, but did manage to blast a gigantic hole in the wall. At least the hole has the added bonus of letting in some light from the outside world, so they’re no longer working in complete darkness.

Though it looks like nothing is going to come crashing down on him, Bucky is still tensed up. Somebody had to be around to toss that bomb in their direction and chances are, they’ve got to be lurking around somewhere. They’ll probably want to make sure that Bucky and Steve are permanently disposed of.

Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky catches a flicker of movement — a shadow, flickering on the wall of the stairwell.

He gives chase, rifle held up in front of him. Bucky leaps over the railing, jumps past five steps and lands in a crouch on the floor below. He hoists his rifle to his shoulder, sights, then opens fire, catching the agent in the back of the thigh as he runs down the hallway. His finger presses the trigger again, letting another bullet fly; this one catches the man in the back of the knee. He topples, collapsing to the floor.

Bucky draws his knife as he stalks to the man with brusque purposefulness. He disposes of the agent in a brutal but efficient manner, slitting his throat in one gracefully swift slash. The agent is dead before his head even hits the ground. After glancing up and down the corridor to ensure that no one else is going to spring up on him, Bucky races back up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Natasha’s voice crackles in his ear. “Barnes, come in, Barnes!” she yells.

“Romanoff,” he says gruffly as he stores his knife away.

“What the fuck happened?”

“Bomb,” he replies tersely, “Punched a hole right through the wall,”.

“Cap?”

Bucky hesitates. “Status unknown,”.

A pause, then, “Find Steve, we’ll get to the quinjet!” Sam calls.

“Already on it,” Bucky mutters.

Bucky clambers over bits of concrete and dead bodies towards the hole in the wall, because that is where the centre of the blast was. It’s where Steve must be. He cups his hand around his mouth and yells “Steve!”, ignoring the fact that his voice sounds a little bit hoarse and anguished.

He gets no response.

 _He’s just knocked out_ , Bucky reasons, as he steps over a particularly large block of concrete.  _No need to panic, Barnes_.

Bucky yelps when a hand closes around his ankle.

“Steve!” he cries, sinking down to his knees beside the man in question.

Steve’s not doing too good. His eye’s swelling over, his lip’s been busted open and blood is trickling from his nose and various other cuts on his face. His body is wedged at an awkward angle between a concrete block and the door to one of the offices. His legs are askew in front of him, uniform covered in a thin coating of dust. He looks a little bit like a rag-doll.

That’s not even the worse part.

No. What’s worse is that there’s a  _huge ass steel pipe_ embedded in his thigh.

It’s at least three inches in diameter, jagged and pointy at both ends. It’s pierced Steve’s right leg, just above the knee. He’s sitting in a growing pool of blood, and the entire leg of his uniform is quickly getting soaked in it.

Bucky is agape.

“What’d I say about not doing anything stupid, punk?” Bucky says weakly. He can’t help it. It’s the first thought that pops into his head.

Steve chuckles.

“Shit, pal, hold on,” Bucky mutters, as he lifts his wrist to his mouth. “Natasha?”

“Yeah?” she responds, sounding a little bit breathless.

“I’ve found Steve. He’s not too good,”.

“What happened?”

“Got a steel pipe sticking out of his thigh,”.

Nat curses. “Alright, keep him stable. I’ll try to call in a medic,”.

When Bucky turns to look back at Steve, he finds that his head’s lolling to the side and his eyes are sliding shut. No, no, no, that’s not good, that’s not good, he needs to stay awake; the last thing Bucky wants is for Steve to go into shock because of the blood loss.

“Hey pal,” Bucky says, lightly slapping Steve on the cheek. Steve grunts, tries to twist his head away. “Steve, hey, hey,  _no_ , stay with me pal,”.

Sam’s voice crackles in his ear. “Medics en route,”.

“ETA?”

“5, maybe 10?”

“Tell them to hurry the fuck up,” Bucky snaps.

Steve attempts to shift himself and hisses in pain, clutching at Bucky’s arm frantically. “Yeah bud, hang tight, we got help on the way,”. Bucky looks around the barren corridor in search of something — anything — that he could use to staunch the bleeding.

“Gonna take more than this to get rid of me,” Steve mutters. He coughs wetly, forcing another trickle of blood out of his nose. Bucky grimaces.

“It’s okay, Stevie—bud, just stay with me,” Bucky soothes. He feels helpless. Bucky’s got some basic first-aid training, of course he does, but for goodness’ sake — in what universe is this situation considered  _basic_? Who the fuck thinks that extracting a goddamn steel  _pipe_ out of someone’s leg is basic first aid training?

“Bucky?” Steve asks, squeezing Bucky’s forearm to get his attention.

“Yeah?”

“Tell Y/N I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the wedding,”.

The broken pieces of Bucky’s heart crumble to dust at the sorrow in Steve’s voice.

“Listen here, Rogers—,” he starts.

“Bucky—,”

“No, shuddup, you punk,” Bucky says fiercely, moving in a little closer so that his face is right in front of Steve’s — that way, there is no way that Steve can miss the fierce determination in his expression. “You listen here, punk,” Bucky growls, “You  _are_ gonna make it to your wedding, ya hear me? Even if I have to haul your ass there to—,”

Bucky cuts himself off when Steve coughs again, another spurt of blood dribbling out of his nose. Steve wipes his face with the back of his hand, smearing blood in streaks across his cheek.

“Bucky?” says Steve, quieter this time.

Bucky swallows. “Yeah?”

“Thanks,”.

“For what?”

“For sticking with me,” Steve replies, the corners of his lips curling up into a tired smile. “’Til the end of the line,”.

Hot tears prick at the back of Bucky’s eyelids.

“S’not the end, pal,” Bucky protests, fighting to keep his voice steady, “Stevie, you gotta— _fuck_ ,”. His voice cracks, mirroring the way in which his heart is shattering inside his chest. “No, no, no, this ain’t the end of the line, Stevie, we got this far, you ain’t dyin’ on me now,”.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Steve says weakly, letting his drooping eyelids slide shut.

“No!” Bucky shouts, his voice wavering unsteadily. He cups Steve’s face in both hands, trying to be as gentle as he can so as to not aggravate any potential neck trauma. “You keep your eyes open an’ you keep ‘em on me, yeah? Jus’ hold tight ’til the medics come, alright?”

“Barnes,” says Sam’s voice in his ear.

“What?” Bucky says curtly.  

“Barnes, I got a missile incoming,” Natasha informs him, a edge of panic to her voice.

Bucky’s blood turns cold. Beneath him, Steve’s eyes flash open.

“W-what?” Bucky croaks, “Romanoff I—I can’t leave Steve,”.

“Barnes you need to get outta there!” Natasha insists, “You got two minutes, tops,”.

“Two minutes?!” Bucky squawks.

“Two minutes,” she confirms, voice grim. “Barnes, get  _out_ of there,”

“We’ve powered up the quinjet,” Sam adds, “We’ll land it a little closer to the compound,”.

“Bucky, just go, get out of here,” Steve grits out, pressing a hand to Bucky’s chest to shove him away.

“No!” Bucky roars, slamming his fist into the crumbling concrete out of frustration. “Not without you!”.

“Buck—,”

“Fuck this shit, I’m carrying you outta here,” Bucky grumbles, shifting back so that he can scoop Steve into his arms.

“Buck you’ll be faster without me!” Steve protests.

“Like hell I’m leavin’ you behind, punk,” Bucky snaps.

“ _Please_ , Bucky,” Steve begs. There’s something in his voice that makes Bucky pause, look directly into Steve’s eyes. There’s clarity in his gaze, that trademark Steven Grant Rogers stubbornness shining through a cloud of sorrow and regret.

“Please, Bucky,” he repeats, softer this time, the remorse evident in his voice. “Don’t—don’t fight me on this one. For Y/N. You gotta—you gotta tell her,”.

The mention of your name brings up a whole host of emotions that Bucky most definitely does not have the time for. The truth between you and him balances precariously on the tip of his tongue. Bucky wants, oh, he so desperately  _wants_  to tell Steve the truth. The  _full_ truth and nothing but the truth, because… _goddammit_ , he owes it to his best pal, but—but Steve’s about to  _die_ and Bucky can’t spring that on him in his last moments.

 _There’re so many things I never got to say to you_.

“Barnes,  _now,_ ” Natasha growls, her tone desperate.

“Barnes, you gotta find cover,” Sam insists.

“Take the shield,” says Steve, his left hand twitching in the direction in which it has fallen. “Take it, it’ll protect you,”.

Bucky looks in the direction Steve’s gesturing in. The red, white and blue disc glints at him from down the hallway. If Bucky can get to it in time, he can bring it back and use it to protect Steve from the blast but —  _fuck_  it’s too far away. Even if Bucky sprints to get it, he won’t make it back in time to save Steve.

“Go,” Steve urges, his expression broken and resigned in a way Bucky’s never seen before.

He swallows thickly. There are tears streaming down his cheeks, he realises. “Steve, I—,”

“You’re with me ’til the end of the line, right?” Steve murmurs.

Bucky nods mutely.

“Well, I’m telling you this now — my line doesn’t end here,” Steve says, “Y/N’s gonna keep it going for me,”.

“Steve—,”

“Hold on, lemme finish,” Steve breathes, “I know you love her. You can tell me no, but I know you, Barnes, known you all my life. So I…I give you…my permission to…to do what you think is right,”.

Bucky’s heart is doing all sorts of flips in his chest. He—he doesn’t need to hear this now, his brain’s too overwhelmed as it is. Bucky files this information away in a folder in the back of his brain for him to re-examine later.

“You wanna stick with me ’til the end of the line? I’m asking you to keep her safe,” Steve murmurs. The corner of his lip twitches up into a lop-sided, bloodied smirk. “You keep her safe, okay?” Steve pleads, “Tell her that I love her, and that I’m sorry. And—and, Bucky?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you too,”.

Bucky sobs hoarsely, clasping Steve’s blood-streaked hand in his own, squeezing their fingers together. He tries not to think about the fact that this is the last time he’ll ever get to do that. Bucky ducks down to press a soft, parting kiss to Steve’s forehead — a single gesture which is nowhere  _near_ enough to convey everything he needs to say to the one man that matters most to him, to the one one man who deserves so much more — before jumping up, giving Steve a parting half-wave, then sprinting for the shield.

“30 seconds,” says Nat.

Bucky runs and runs and runs, forcing himself to not think about Steve. To not think about the fact that he is abandoning his brother in every sense of the word, to not think about the fact that he’s a terrible friend. There’s nothing he can do besides run. Bucky pours every last scrap of energy into the sprint, pumping his arms to propel his body forward. He picks up the shield when he passes by it, then holds it out in front of him as he heads towards the window. Bucky leaps through the glass, curling his body into a ball and twisting the shield so that it hits the ground first, in order to absorb the force of the impact.

“10 seconds,” Nat murmurs.

“We’ll miss you, Steve,” Sam sniffles.

Bucky ignores the pain lancing through his chest and shoulder, ignores the ruthless ache in his heart, ignores the dull throbbing in his thigh. He pushes on, aiming to at least get clear of the facility’s grounds, into the trees behind it.

“3,”.

Bucky vaults over the low brick wall—

“2,”.

—tumbles into a ditch—

“1,”.

—and gets the shield above his head to protect himself from the hailstorm of debris.

The explosion rocks the ground beneath him. A wave of raw, uninhibited energy rips through his body; his entire being get pummelled by an unforgiving wall of force. Flickers of bright orange and burnt red dance at the corner of his eye, and his skin is seared by the white-hot lick of flames.

When the dust begins to settle, Bucky slowly pushes himself to his feet to survey the damage.

What he sees is utter devastation.

The facility has been levelled to the ground. Only a few crumbling support pillars remain standing; nearly everything else has been turned to dust or fine rubble.

He swallows.

There’s no way Steve could have survived that.

“Barnes? Status report?” Natasha prompts.

His hand trembles when he brings it up to his wrist. “Impact confirmed. Steve…he—he couldn’t have made it,”.

“May he rest in peace,” Sam whispers.

Bucky feels sickened, chilled to his core. He feels hollow, yet way too full, all at the same time — he is devoid of emotion, whilst simultaneously feeling far too many emotions. Bucky collapses to his hands and knees, fingers digging into the cracked dirt and dried grass in front of him. He retches violently, lungs contracting and heaving like bellows, but nothing comes out of him. He slams his fists into the ground, thrashes and sobs violently, even howls into the still of night like a wolf. Grief crashes through his system, pounding him again and again in forceful, unrelenting waves.

 _Steve is gone_.

——————————

Natasha and Sam eventually have to come and haul him out of the ditch, because Bucky finds himself too shell-shocked to move.

“We have to go check,” Bucky says brokenly, shaking his head no when Natasha tries to coax him to come into the quinjet.

Sam opens up his pack and pulls out a small handheld device. It’s a thermal sensor. He hands it to Bucky, who aims it at the remnants of the building.

The screen reads nothing.

No heat signatures whatsoever.

Bucky swallows back the nausea rising in his throat. “We gotta go check,” he insists.

——————————

They end up spending at least an hour trawling through the rubble. It’s laborious and difficult work, and most of the concrete pieces are too large for the three of them to lift together — even with Bucky’s enhanced strength — but he stoutly perseveres, nonetheless. If Steve—if there’s even a fraction of a  _chance_ that he’s alive, they’ve got to find him.

But when Bucky catches the worried and somewhat doubtful look that Sam shoots in Nat’s direction, he knows that that chance is growing thinner by the second.

Eventually, Bucky has to admit defeat.

He hates that. He hates himself for failing the one person that always came through for him. He hates how he never got to tell Steve the truth, hates how he’ll never get to see Steve’s smile, or hear his laugh, hates how they’ll never be able to spar together, or laugh at stupid jokes together, or reminisce about two young, innocent boys from a time long gone together.

The Smithsonian was wrong, he thinks.  _Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield._

Turns out, they were inseparable in just the one.

The flight home is eerily quiet. Bucky’s glad of that. He doesn’t want to talk.

Natasha’s flying the jet, with Sam sitting in the co-pilot seat beside her. Bucky’s sitting in the back, slouched against the wall. Snippets of murmured conversation from the cockpit reach his ears, but Bucky pays them no attention. Steve’s shield leans on the wall opposite him, new scratches marring the white star. Bucky can’t tear his eyes away from it the entire flight home.

Maybe, if he stares at it hard enough, Steve will return.

——————————

Natasha lands the jet with practiced ease. She powers down the engines, then turns around to give Bucky a tight smile. He thinks it’s supposed to be a show of support. With a heavy sigh, Bucky gets up, picks up Steve’s shield, then leads the trio out of the quinjet.

In the distance, Bucky sees you and Wanda racing over. His heart starts to race a little faster; this is what he has been dreading. As soon as he steps off the ramp, you launch yourself at Bucky, eyes manic and expression concerned.

“God, guys, you look like shit!” Wanda exclaims, “What happened?”

“Where’s Steve?” you ask Bucky, craning your head around to look over his shoulder.

Bucky looks to Nat and Sam, helplessness written all over his features.

“Where’s Steve?” you repeat, your voice wavering slightly. It is then that your eyes flick downwards, and you notice that Steve’s shield is being held in Bucky’s loose grip. You snatch it out of his hand.

“Bucky, why do you have this?” you ask sharply, “Where’s Steve?”

Bucky bites his quivering bottom lip and keeps his eyes downcast, unwilling to meet the anguish in your gaze. Your fingers hook into the straps on the front of his uniform, yanking him forward so that your face is just an inch away from his own.

“Barnes, don’t fuck with me,” you growl, “Where. Is. Steve?”

Bucky swallows, trying to force his mouth to shape the words that he has been unwilling to say. Saying them aloud makes it final, makes it a fact — one which he doesn’t want to admit. Though Bucky may have lied to you a lot in recent months, this is not a situation which he can bluff his way out of.

“He’s dead,”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Share this post on [tumblr!](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/168040942710/a-messed-up-place-nine/)


	11. TEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A funeral, a video and a bombshell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a dark and cynical chapter, mostly because Bucky is Fed-Up™ with life. Hopefully, that comes through in the language.

The entire world goes into two days of mourning when the news becomes general knowledge. Kids don’t go to school, people don’t go to work and shops put up their “Sorry, we’re closed” signs. The streets of New York become eerily dead, as if the city were a ghost town. It unsettles Bucky.

For the most part, he’s been staying within the confines of the compound, where things are relatively safe. The rest of the gang are staying there too, perhaps in a show of solidarity, for him. The PR team has been running on practically no sleep these past couple of days, working hard to fend off rabid reporters and greedy journalists, all clamouring for a statement —  _any_ statement — from anyone on the team.

No one wants to talk to any of them. In fact, no one wants to talk at all — everyone goes about their day in a muted, rather dejected silence. They keep the TV permanently on in the background, just to fill the emptiness in the air. Unfortunately, it seems that every single channel seems to be focused on the same thing: Captain America’s death. If Bucky weren’t feeling so despondent, he might be marginally impressed by the sheer volume of conspiracy theories that the world had managed to cook up in the space of 24 hours.

A sense of disbelief hangs heavy over the entire world. News reporters from all over simply cannot comprehend the fact that Captain America had died.

The thing is, though, is that they’re forgetting the most important of this whole ordeal.

It’s not just the  _symbol_ that has passed, but the man behind it too. A man who believed in the greater good, who fought valiantly in the name of his country, who stood his ground in the face of beings more evil than anyone could ever comprehend.

But as grand as all that may be, to Bucky, Steve’s just a punk ass Brooklyn boy. He’s the spitfire on two legs who has known Bucky for as long as his memory stretches back and  _god_ —it feels strange not having him around. It makes Bucky feel empty, incomplete.

Steve’s funeral takes place on Friday morning, three days after Kinshasa. Fittingly, the day is dark and miserable, gloomy grey clouds sitting low in the sky, drizzling a light shower of rain on the city below. Bucky’s eyes track the rain drops as the fall onto the windscreen.

Sam’s driving the two of them to the church where the funeral ceremony will be taking place. Bucky’s grateful for his company, if only because he doesn’t try to fill in the silence. Bucky appreciates that; it allows him some time alone with his thoughts.

“Death is a bitch,” Bucky mutters darkly. He keeps his voice low, but in the otherwise quiet of the car, there’s no doubt in his mind that Sam has heard him. Whatever the case, Same doesn’t acknowledge the fact that Bucky’s spoken, just keeps his gaze trained on the road ahead and keeps on driving. They’re about ten minutes away.

“Death’s a goddamn, good-for-nothing, fucking  _bastard,_ ” Bucky snarls, voice dripping with angry bitterness. His thick Brooklyn accent is slipping through in a way it hasn’t done for a long time. “It takes away everything tha’s good, just ‘cause it can. Don’t think nothin’ ‘bout what the rest of us want.”

Again, Sam makes no comment, but when Bucky looks at him through the corner of his eyes, he notices the way Sam’s fingers have tightened their grip on the steering wheel, the way his lips have pursed slightly. He’s not totally unaffected, then.

There are many things which Bucky hates about Steve being dead.

If Bucky were to list them all, he’d probably be about ready to get into his  _own_ grave by the time he’d finished. As it stands, at this moment in time, the thing which he hates most is the fact that he has to attend a goddamn  _ceremony_ , whose sole purpose is to highlight — shine a big ass spotlight on — the passing of his best friend.

No. That’s wrong. The more he thinks about it, the more Bucky realises that this funeral is not, in fact, a ceremony to recognise the passing of Steven Grant Rogers, but to commemorate the loss of Captain America: A national icon.  

Bucky doesn’t want to go to this funeral. Not because he doesn’t want to say his last goodbyes to his old pal, but because he’s anticipating a stuffy ceremony attended by obnoxious and/or pretentious high-ranking officials who’ve barely said two words to Steve since his time out of the ice. More importantly, Bucky doesn’t  _need_ to be reminded about Steve’s death — his own mind does that plenty of times in the dreary hours between sunset and sunrise.

His nose scrunches up in distaste when Sam pulls up in front of the church where the ceremony is being held. It’s an antiquated building, adorned with marble statues and stained glass windows — a far cry to the place that his ma used to drag him and Steve to on Sunday mornings, once upon a time.

It’s a disgustingly pompous ceremony — and he hasn’t even stepped foot into the place. Through the window, Bucky sees hordes of men decked out in their military best, milling around the front entrance. A valet rushes up, takes note of Sam’s license plate, then directs them to a reserved parking space. To the left of his field of vision, behind a metal barrier, Bucky notices crowds of reporters brandishing microphones. He feels sickened by their behaviour; they shouldn’t be so ruthless on a day like this.

Bucky sighs heavily as Sam parks the car. This is nothing like what he would’ve wanted for Steve. Granted, what he wanted was for the punk to not be  _dead_ , but—failing that, he would’ve liked something smaller, more meaningful. More private. But, Captain America’s death is, of course, a national affair and by default, national officials get to determine how this funeral pans out. Bucky has had no say whatsoever; he’s been forced to go along with the plan, because when a national symbol dies — properly dies, this time, he thinks forlornly — it automatically becomes a national affair.

Once Sam has killed the engine, Bucky unclips his seatbelt and gets out of the car, stretching his arms above his head to work out the kinks in his back. Two spaces down, he spots you, Natasha and Wanda stepping out of a discreet black vehicle. You’re dressed in a simple black shift dress, a neat headpiece pinned into your hair. Your lips are set into a grim line. Wanda has a hand on the small of your back and is hurriedly ushering you inside, casting a reproachful glare at anyone standing in their way. Natasha catches Bucky’s wandering gaze, flashes him a tight smile, then briskly trots after the two of them.

What Bucky hates most about stupid ceremony is its ridiculousness. The unnecessary pomp and grandeur, the sheer  _number_ of people who are here simply so that they can say that they’ve paid their respects to Captain America. It’s disturbing, really, the number of faces he doesn’t recognise in the slightest. To reign in some of the chaos, Tony — or, as Bucky suspects, Pepper — only invited the people who Steve has actually worked with. But even so.

These people only ever saw him as Captain America, never as the compassionate and loveable man he was underneath.

It’s horrible, simply put, to be immersed in a sea of people who clearly never cared for Steve as Steve Rogers — they were only concerned with Steve as Captain America, a device to be wielded by the higher powers. But what makes everything a million times worse is that this funeral, but its very nature and purpose, scream out “Steve is dead” wherever Bucky looks. Those three words might as well be emblazoned on everybody’s foreheads, at this rate.

It’s a miracle that the mourners — or, perhaps more accurately, the  _supposed_ mourners — keep their distance. Maybe that has more to do with the fact that Sam glares murderously as anyone who so much as glances in Bucky’s direction, as opposed to them acting out of sheer respectfulness, but still. It counts for something. Once inside, Sam catches sight of Natasha’s fiery red hair, and guides Bucky over to where the girls are sat. You flash Bucky a tight-lipped smile as he sinks into the space beside you, your hand curling around his left bicep as you tuck yourself against his side.

On any other day, in any other version of reality, perhaps Bucky would be rejoicing at receiving such a gesture from you. Today, though? Today he feels too emotionally dead on the inside to care very much.

Moments later, the choir starts singing, prompting everyone to stand up, whilst keeping their heads respectfully bowed. A hush descends over the room as the pallbearers march in, a casket covered by the American flag held over their shoulders. An elegant bouquet of white flowers sits atop it. The casket’s empty, Bucky knows this — there wasn’t much left of Steve to put inside it, when all was said and done — but the sight is a punch to the gut for him, all the same.

The pallbearers set it down at the front of the church, to the right of the podium and to the left of Steve’s picture. The picture is in a simple black frame and is of Steve from back in the war, wearing the uniform that Bucky used to tease the shit out of him for. It’s Steve looking heroic and determined, but younger, somehow, as if he’s carrying less of a burden on his shoulders. It’s Steve from a time when the world wasn’t so cruel.

Bucky turns away when he feels the heat of tears pricking at his eyes. He takes his seat along with everyone else, as the priest steps up to the podium to begin the ceremony.

As he’d expected, the service itself drags on for far too long.

To be fair, it could have dragged on for longer, but thankfully, they’d been able to limit the number of speeches being delivered today. Sure, that’s only to the extent that they’ve given speech-making privileges to those who have spoken to Steve on more than three occasions, but nonetheless, it’s at least a relatively small pool of people. Bucky forces himself to sit through monotonous speech after monotonous speech, despite the fact that what he  _really_ wants to do is get the hell out of here.

Politicians and presidents, diplomats and people lucky enough to be saved by the brave actions of the strong Captain America all have their 60 seconds behind the mic. Bucky forces himself to listen to them talk about Steve as if they’d actually known him. They talk about the, quote “profound words of wisdom” he imparted on them in their brief moments of contact. They talk about how they believed in Captain America and everything he stood for. They speak of Captain America’s bravery, the sense of hope he conveyed and his belief in people.

It’s rather worrying that by the fifth speech of the hour, Bucky’s got a mental game of bingo going on, checking off key phrases — or some variant of them — as yet another person who barely knew Steve claims that they were, in fact, one of Captain America’s closest friends.

Bucky had refused to say anything during the ceremony, and so had you. But someone on the team needed to say something and in the end, that responsibility falls to Natasha. When the priest calls upon her, she takes a second to fix the fascinator hat perched jauntily on her head, readjusts the netted veil covering the top half of her face, then crosses over to the podium. She says a few brief words that manage to be profound and heartfelt, in a way no one quite expected her to be capable of. Once done, Natasha returns to her seat on Bucky’s right, looking a little paler, but otherwise no less composed. He expects nothing different from her.

The ceremony finishes up with a two-minute video montage of Captain America through the years. It is a combination of recordings from the War and modern-day news footage, chopped up and stringed together in a stunning display of Cap’s heroic bravery. There are clips from the battle in New York, the fight in Sokovia, even a shot from Leipzig. The whole thing comes off as rather hyperbolic; a grandiose and unrealistic portrayal of Captain America. Then, Bucky remembers that this is the image of Captain America that people hold in their minds, and once again, he is reminded of how fake everything is.

This is a funeral ceremony being put on for the sake of the American people. The fact that it is in commemoration of Steve’s legacy is merely a passing afterthought. It feels like a hoax, a twisted show of support. As the video comes to an end, you tighten your arm around Bucky’s bicep, squeezing it reassuringly. He turns to the side, and catches your eye as you grimace at each other — a million words are silently communicated in that single gaze.

Then, Sam is tugging on Bucky’s elbow and jerking his head towards the casket. Bucky nods in understanding: it’s time to bring Steve to his final resting place.

Bucky grips the top left corner of the casket, Sam the top right. On the count of three, they and four other men hoist it onto their shoulders and walk out into the pouring rain. It’s a sombre atmosphere, to match the sadness Bucky’s feeling on the inside. When he glances over his shoulder, he sees you trailing behind their procession, Nat and Wanda flanking your sides.

The casket is lowered into the grave as mourners flock towards them, black umbrellas held above their heads to shield them from the drizzle. You appear by Bucky’s side, leaning against him slightly, as if you’re too tired to support your own weight. Bucky knows the feeling.

Someone hands him a flower. Bucky glances at his hand and finds that it’s a rose, dark crimson in colour. He tries not to think about the fact that it’s unnervingly similar to the red of freshly spilt blood.

When the time comes, Bucky steps forward, his movements stiff and mechanical. The flower feels cold in his hand. The murmur of voices around him sound muffled to his ears. The rain is slowly drenching him to the bone, but he hardly takes notice of it; he is too numb to care. He stands at the edge of the hole in the ground, staring blankly at the polished mahogany of the casket. When he holds his hand out in front of him — the flesh one — it feels disconnected from his body, as if he’s a puppet being moved into position by invisible strings. Bucky uncurls his fingers and watches as the flower falls onto the dark wood.

He’s grateful for the rain, because it masks the tear tracks on his face.

Later, as the crowd thins, the people that pass by him give Bucky a pat on the shoulder and flash a sympathetic smile that feels far too forced, for his liking. Bucky nods in thanks, presses his lips together and accepts their sympathy without really examining it. You trudge along by his side, keeping your gaze downcast so as to avoid the pitiful stares being shot in your direction. Someone hands you the flag that had been draped over Steve’s casket, now folded up into a neat little square. You accept it with two hands, hugging it tightly to your chest.

After what seems like an eternity, Sam finally emerges out of thin air. He takes one glance at you and Bucky, realises that neither of you are doing too hot — in fact, in Bucky’s case, Sam probably realises that Bucky is on the verge of a mental breakdown — and promptly carts you both to his car.

——————————

When Bucky gets to the compound, he heads straight into his room, desperately craving privacy, having been surrounded by strangers for the better part of the last few hours. He slams the door shut, flips the lock, then proceeds to shuck off off his overly-restrictive suit, tossing items of clothing onto the floor as they’re taken off, not really caring where they land. Once he’s stripped down to his boxers, Bucky crawls into bed, burrowing under the rumpled covers. He rolls onto his back and throws his arm over his eyes to block out the meagre sunlight streaming in through the window.

Bucky is exhausted. In fact, “exhausted” doesn’t even fully cover the extent of the fatigue he’s feeling.

It’s a kind of exhaustion that is beyond anything he’s experienced before. The tiredness has seeped deep into his bones, making them metaphorically ache and creak with every movement. It’s not just a physical fatigue, either — his mind is so _indescribably_  tired from all the thinking and overthinking it’s been doing lately. Bucky is emotionally spent. He’s done with it all. He’s done with his life, done with having to put on a brave face, having to pretend that he’s okay, having to act strong—

“Sergeant Barnes?”

“Yeah, FRIDAY?” he grunts.

“There’s something you should see.”

He moves his arm away from his eyes so that he can peer suspiciously at the ceiling.

“What is it, FRI?” asks Bucky, as he pushes himself up into a seated position. He scoots back so that he’s slouched against the headboard, his legs still tangled in the sheets. Bucky’s confusion deepens when the tablet on his bedside table beeps, the screen lighting up, signalling an incoming message. He picks up his tablet, taps a couple of buttons on the screen and frowns when he sees that the AI has sent him a video file.

“What is this?”

“A video from Captain Rogers,” FRIDAY replies. Bucky sucks in a sharp breath.

“A video?” he echoes, voice slightly croaky.

“Yes. He instructed me to send this to you in the moments before his death.”

Well if  _that_ doesn’t pique Bucky’s curiosity, then nothing ever will. Even so, a part of him winces at the thought of this being Steve’s final request. This video must be pretty damn important for Steve — in his weakened state — to ask FRIDAY to send it to Bucky. But at the same time, Bucky’s not ready to see a video. As intrigued as Bucky might be, he’s fairly certain that the sound of Steve’s voice will set off a fresh wave of guilt.

“When…when was this video made?” Bucky asks.

“Captain Rogers recorded this clip eight days ago.”

“Huh,” Bucky mumbles. Unable to control his morbid curiosity, Bucky uses his — trembling, he notes — flesh hand to tap the screen, in order to play the clip.

Steve’s face appears, bright and cheerful as ever. The sight of his bright blue eyes and familiar smile sends a pang of sorrow through Bucky’s chest. From the looks of it, Steve is sitting at his desk, with the recording device propped up on something. He’s wearing a navy blue henley, and his golden hair is messy, tufts sticking up all over the place, as if he’s run his fingers through it several times. It’s dark, with the only source of illumination being his desk lamp, which casts strange shadows over his face.

“Hey Bucky,” Steve greets and  _god_ , it’s just two simple words that Bucky’s heard him say at least a million times before, but they make his heart twist all the same. Or maybe, it’s not so much the words that are affecting him, but Steve’s voice. He’s missed hearing it.

Steve laughs sheepishly, before sitting forward in his chair and leaning his elbows on the table. For a moment, he seems unsure of what to do with his hands, but finally settles on clasping them together in front of him.

“Look, pal, I’m not even sure if I’m gonna send this to you, but…I need to get this off my chest somehow, and this feels like the only way, so—so hear me out, okay?”

Bucky waits with bated breath as Steve pauses to compose himself.

“Bucky….I know that you and Y/N have some sort of…history, together.”

Bucky’s breathing catches in his throat. His hand twitches by his side, his fingers itching to shut the video off because  _fuck_ , this doesn’t sound like something he wants to hear. But, Steve specifically asked for FRIDAY to send this to him, which therefore implies that this is something he needs to see this.

And so he watches on.

“I don’t know  _exactly_ what kinda history we’re talkin’ about here, what it involved,” Steve admits, “Whether it’s just you having a crush on her, or what, but the point is, I know that there’s something… _more_  between you two. M’not an idiot.”

Steve pauses and leans back in his chair, running his fingers through his already-ruffled hair as he contemplates his next words. “You’re probably thinking somethin’ along the lines of ‘why the fuck didn’t this punk say something if he knew?’ or something,” Steve adds, mimicking Bucky’s voice with uncanny precision. Bucky rolls his eyes, but finds himself chuckling, nonetheless.

“And the truth is,” Steve continues, his expression sobering, “I don’t know. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. Maybe I was afraid that I was wrong, maybe I was  _hoping_ that I was wrong — for selfish reasons, or whatever, but I…I dunno. I have no excuse,”. He laughs dejectedly, “Maybe I just hoped that, with time, you’d…things’d fizzle out between you, and I’d get to keep her forever. I know, selfish, right?”

Bucky’s heart is thumping wildly in his throat. He’s not sure whether he wants to scream, or be sick, or punch the screen, or do some combination of those three actions, but he forces himself to sit still and watch on.

“Listen, Bucky,” Steve sighs, raking a hand down his face. “S’ the third time I’ve tried to record this, and I still don’t know what I’m gettin’ at. I don’t…I don’t know exactly know what I’m tryna say here. I got a few things I wanna say, I guess. I’m sorry, first off. I knew that you…loved her — love her? Shit, I dunno anymore—,” Steve breaks off, growling softly in frustration as he tugs at the ends of his hair. He takes another deep breath before trying again.

“Look, Bucky, I mean it when I say I’m sorry, ‘kay? M’really sorry. I did some shit things to you. I asked you…well, I asked her to marry me, which…I can only imagine how tough that must’a been for you. And I know that’s—or at least, I  _think_  that the situation is kinda complicated, because…well, because I love her, and you — I  _think_  — love her, and if you do, well, that was a dick move, from me, I admit it!” Steve says, the volume of his voice rising with the last statement.

“I know you, Buck, but you—I  _don’t_ know if you’d’ve ever said anything to me if you weren’t happy about all this. I—I have a feeling that you wouldn’t, but then, I never wanted to assume shit and make things awkward, but no matter what I thought, or did, or didn’t do…I ended up making assumptions anyway—does that even make sense?” Steve asks, bright blue eyes looking directly into the camera.

“Kind of,” Bucky replies, before his cheeks flush hotly when he realises that Steve is not actually there, talking to him.

“Anyway, I—okay, I guess this is pretty selfish of me, but I was kinda hoping that you…wouldn’t. I mean, wouldn’t call me out and stop me from getting with her,” Steve says, voice going quieter as he fidgets with a pen on his desk. “I—maybe that makes me a terrible person, but I love Y/N, and I really do want to marry her,”.

“Fuck, what am I tryna say?” Steve huffs, sitting back and crossing his arms behind his head as he stares up at the ceiling. “I guess…I guess I’m tryna say I’m sorry if I ever hurt you. Maybe a part of me knew that I was hurting you with what I was doing, but—but Bucky,you  _gotta_  believe me when I say I didn’t want to. Honest,”.

Steve’s looking at the camera again and there is no way that Bucky could have mistaken the look in his eyes for anything  _but_ sincerity.

“I love Y/N, I really do, but Bucky—I love you as well. I never,  _ever_ want to hurt you, but I—I can’t know if I’m hurting you if you don’t tell me that you’re hurt, right?”

 _And there lies the problem_ , Bucky thinks.  _That’s why I’m in this situation right now. Because no one knows how badly I’m hurt. Not even myself._

Steve sighs again, crossing his arms over his broad chest as he chews on his bottom lip. “Maybe you’re not hurt, although I find that hard to believe. If you’re not hurt — well, then this whole thing has just been a waste of time, but…but if you  _are_ , then I wanna be there to help you, Bucky,” Steve murmurs, “Even if you do love Y/N, I—we can work something out, Buck. We’ve gotten ourselves out of stickier situations that this,”.

“I’m sorry. If I ever hurt you — I’m serious when I say I never wanted for that to happen; it was never my intention. You know how bad I can be at reading people sometimes — that’s all you, that’s what  _you’re_ good at. I ain’t too hot at reading between the lines. S’a reason why I was never cut out for spy stuff, right?” Steve jokes, lips curling up into that heartbreakingly familiar smile.

Bucky finds himself smirking in response.

“But..um,” Steve mumbles, licking his lips before continuing, “Listen, if I…if things don’t work out between me and Y/N — and, well, I hope they do work out, Jesus Christ, I’m marrying her in three weeks time, for fuck’s sake, but…hypothetically speaking, if shit hits the fan, as they say, well—then, I’m not going to hold anything against you. If you want to get with her, and she wants to get with you, then believe that I am being completely honest when I say — I  _don’t mind_. You hear me? James Buchanan Barnes, you listenin’ to me? This getting’ though that thick skull’a yours?”

“Not as thick as yours, Rogers,” Bucky says instinctually.

“You—,” Steve cuts himself off, swallowing nervously, “You have my blessing, Bucky. If Y/N decides that she wants you — or if she doesn’t want me anymore, then…then you can have her. I don’t mean to make her sound like a thing, and I’m not…not in any way discrediting her feelings for me — ya’ gotta understand that I  _do_ love her, and I hope to the God above that she loves me back, but…d’you see what I’m tryna say? All I want is for Y/N to be happy, wherever that happiness may come from. If she finds that happiness with me— great! If she finds happiness with you—,” Steve looks directly into the camera again, his gaze softening, “Well that’s great too. Honest, I’m not gonna hold it against you, or against her.”

Steve takes another shuddery breath. “Fuck, that was a load of horse shit,” Steve mutters, mostly to himself. “Don’t even know if any of it made sense, but um—Bucky?”

“Yeah?” Bucky breathes.

“You—you deserve happiness,” Steve says, “You deserve to be loved. You deserve a soft end. You deserve—you deserve  _good things_.”

Bucky gulps audibly, as he blinks away the tears threatening to spill over.

“I—yeah. No idea if you’re gonna see this, but if you did, if you do, I—take care, pal. You…do what you think is right,”. Steve flashes him one last smile before leaning forward and tapping a button that Bucky can’t see.

The screen goes blank.

Bucky lets the tablet fall out of his grasp and onto the bed. He scrubs the back of his hand over his eyes to get rid of the sting behind his eyelids. Bucky feels like an overwound spring. There’re too many emotions bubbling up inside his heart for him to even process.

“FRIDAY?” he croaks.

“Yes, sir?”

“You have that video saved somewhere, right?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Good,” Bucky says, nodding tiredly as he pulls his duvet over himself “I’d like to take another look at it sometime.” He’s about to curl up and wait for sleep to overtake him when a timid tap sounds on his door.

“Bucky?” you call, “Is…is now not a good time? I can come back later.”

Bucky sighs and rolls out of bed. It’s not like he was going to get much sleep anyway, what with the nightmares that plague his dreams. He stops by his dresser to pull on a pair of joggers, then flips the lock and opens the door.

You’ve changed out of your funeral-wear into a pair of baggy pyjama pants and what looks suspiciously like Steve’s black hoodie. You give him a tight smile. “Hey Bucky,” you murmur, “I don’t want to bother you if you were…sleeping or whatever, but—,”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Bucky says, stepping aside and holding the door open for you, “Come in.”

“Thanks.”

Bucky closes the door once you’ve stepped inside. You head over to Bucky’s desk and perch yourself on his swivel chair, your legs crossed at the knee and your hands fiddling with the strings of your hoodie. Bucky saunters over and sinks onto the bed, sitting opposite you with his elbows resting on his thighs.

“What is it, Y/N?” he asks quietly.

You sigh. “Can I tell you something?”

Buck tenses. He thinks back to all the times you’ve said those words — or some variant of those words — to him in the past. In each instance, things have never worked out in his favour. Maybe he’s being cynical, but he senses something of a trend going on. Whatever the case, Bucky braces himself for the worst.

“Yeah, of course,” he murmurs, licking his lips. “Anything. Always.”

“I’m…pregnant.”

 _Oh, you have_  got  _to be fucking_ kidding _me_ , Bucky sighs internally.

“You’re pregnant,” he echoes.

“I’m pregnant,” you confirm, nodding your head slowly as your gaze drags up to meet his.

The first thing that pops into Bucky’s head are the echoes of Steve’s last words. “My line doesn’t end here,” Steve’d said, “Y/N’s gonna keep it going for me.” Had he—had Steve known, then?

“Wow, Y/N…” Bucky breathes, fighting to keep his pulse and breathing under control. “That’s—that’s huge, I—Steve?”

Your mouth twists into a frown, tears springing to your eyes as you shake your head fiercely. “He didn’t know!” you say frustratedly, “I—I was gonna tell it to him after the wedding, as a surprise.”

“He could’t even have suspected it?” Bucky presses.

You shake your head again. “No—no, only Dr. Cho knows, ‘cause she’s the one who checked me out.”

Bucky breathes out a shaky sigh as he rakes his fingers through his disheveled hair. “When did you find out?”

“After you guys left for Kinshasa. When—after the jet left, I ran to the bathroom and hurled, and it was the third time I’d thrown up that morning. Helen happened to pass by the bathroom at that time and asked me to come into the med bay for a check-up. So—yeah, then she told me I was pregnant. And I—I  _wanted_ to tell Steve, but I—I couldn’t, obviously,” you mumble, tears leaking profusely from the corners of your eyes. “And now I-I-I  _can’t_ ,” you whisper, your voice cracking at the last word.

“Hey, hey, doll—it’s okay,” Bucky murmurs soothingly, springing forward to encircle his arms around you as your weak body slumps forward, all your strength having suddenly abandoned you.

Bucky sits down on the floor and arranges you across his lap. You loop your arms around his shoulders and bury your face in the crook of his neck. For a while, the only sounds in the room are that of your muted sniffles and barely-suppressed sobs. Bucky rubs his hand up and down your back in soothing circles, before turning to press his lips to your forehead in a chaste, comforting kiss. Sure, a part of him feels guilty for doing that to you, given your intertwined past, especially after the events of today, but Steve—Steve had told him to do what he thought was right.

This feels right.

Bucky exhales slowly, his breath ruffling your hair a little, before he speak again. “Okay…okay, fuck, wow,” he mutters, “M’not sure if ‘congratulations’ is appropriate, right now.”

You laugh mirthlessly, your body shaking in his arms. “Thanks, anyway.”

“D’you know how far along you are?” Bucky asks.

You shrug. “Helen says five weeks, but I think I must be a little further along. Or maybe a little less, I don’t know,”.

“Why d’you say that?”

“Well, because five weeks ago, we were on a mission, right?”

 _Five weeks ago we were on a mission_.

In which Bucky had unprotected sex with you.

Oh.  _Shit_.

“Oh,” Bucky says, voice coming out a little squeaky. He recovers quickly, “Yeah—um, wow, okay, this is true,” he mutters.

You hum noncommittally.

Internally Bucky is freaking out. He needs to know more about the situation, so he pushes for answers, although his questions risk revealing the secret he’s been fighting to keep. He clears his throat. “But I—well, I thought that Steve’d be more traditional, y’know? Thought he’d wait ’til after the wedding to…y’know, go without the protection.”

You sigh heavily, curling your body into Bucky’s. “That’s what doesn’t make sense to me,” you grumble, your voice partially muffled by Bucky’s shirt. “We  _always_  used protection. I mean—yeah, there’s like a 2% chance that the condom broke, or whatever, but what are the odds, huh?”

The evidence against Bucky’s case just keeps on piling up.

“Weren’t you on the pill?” he asks weakly.

“I was, but…ugh, it’s a long story,” you groan. “Basically, I used to take one particular version of the pill, but it was giving me breakouts like nothing else, so Helen decided to swap to a different kind — a new one that’d just been okay’d for public consumption. Anyway, because it was new, it took a while to get here, so my old pack finished before the new one’d arrived.”

Bucky nods slowly, grim understanding crossing his features as the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. “And so…you couldn’t get your new pack ’til after the mission?”

“Yeah,” you murmur, “In all, I think I was off the pill for two weeks — the week before the mission, and then during the mission itself,”.

Bucky’s sweating bullets, by this point. He prays that you can’t hear the accelerated thumping of his heart — he swears it’s beating hard enough to hammer its way out of his ribcage. “So that’s why you think you’ve gotta be a little longer than five weeks,” Bucky murmurs.

“Mmhmm.”

He’s fucking screwed. Of all the things to have happened to him, of all the contingent events that could have taken place — it had to be this.

It  _had_ to be this.

Bucky is sickened by what he has done to you, to your  _body_. Steve might think that Bucky deserves good things, but Bucky has a feeling that Steve’s opinion would change when he discovers what Bucky’s done to his best girl. Bucky doesn’t deserve your touch and affection; he’s a monster, a wretched half-human with demons living inside him. He’s contaminated you —  _physically contaminated you_ — with his tainted essence. He’s done you wrong, he’s done Steve wrong and now?

Now he has no fucking clue what to do next.

A teensy, tiny part of his brain is still clinging to the hope that this baby is Steve’s, but the evidence is too perfect. Things are lining up too well. This child is most likely his — and you  _don’t know_.

Bucky swallows nervously. If there’s ever a time to confess, now would be it. Before he can even open his mouth to say anything, though, you’re murmuring softly again.

“I dunno what I wanna do,” you mumble, “Do I—do I keep this baby? Or—not?”

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut and breathes out slowly, counting to three in his head to calm himself down. He doesn’t know how to answer that question in the slightest. He wants to start a family with you, of course he does — but not like this, not under these circumstances. And — if this baby turns out to be Steve’s, well—well then, at least some part of the punk will be sticking around.

Oh god, but what if the kid has Bucky’s eyes? Or some other feature that undoubtedly links it to him? The proof is in the pudding — there’ll be no way to deny what happened that night if that’s the way things pan out.

“I don’t know, Y/N,” Bucky admits quietly, “It’s just—it’s been a long day. Why don’t we just…you don’t have to decide anything now. Let’s just leave that for another day, okay?”

You nod mutely, your cheek rubbing against Bucky’s chest.

“I’ll—I’m gonna go find Nat and ask her to keep me company for a bit,” you sigh, pushing yourself to your feet with much reluctance. You straighten your clothes and give Bucky a tired smile. “Thanks, Bucky. For—for being here for me.”

Bucky doesn’t trust his voice at this moment, so he settles on a terse nod.

You close the door behind you as Bucky crawls back under the covers and instructs FRIDAY to switch off the lights. The emotions that have been champing at the gates in his mind come roaring free the moment he is plunged into darkness.

For the first time in a long time, Bucky Barnes cries himself to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would very much appreciate it if you could [share this chapter on tumblr](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/168195461390/a-messed-up-place-ten/), if you have an account.


	12. ELEVEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Truths are revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is honestly a relief to finally be able to write this chapter. This was the first scene that popped into my head all those weeks ago, when I first planned AMUP. I have been _dying_ to write it ever since. Anyway. **Much angst ahead**. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Bucky takes a hefty swig out of his water bottle. The icy water is a cooling salve as it trickles down his throat.  He takes a few more sips as he towels off his wet hair and glances around the empty, dimly lit gym.

It’s a quarter past two in the morning. Bucky had gone to bed at around 10, only to be woken up by his own screams a couple of hours later, his skin covered in a layer of cold sweat, sheets tangled around his legs and heart thundering against his ribs.

The nightmare had been about Steve, of course. Bucky doesn’t allow himself to dwell on the details.

Fully aware of the fact that he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep with his brain feeling that wired, and unwilling to spend several hours tossing and turning in bed, whilst waiting for the sun to come up, Bucky had changed into a tank top and a pair of loose shorts to hit the gym. Even if he couldn’t tire himself out, at least he’d be able to occupy his time.

Bucky ends up spending nearly two hours in there. He does three rounds of his usual routine on the machines, before spending a ridiculously large amount of time pummelling the shit out of the reinforced punching bags. It’s a strangely cathartic activity.

After taking a shower, he changes into a clean sweatshirt and a pair of black joggers. Bucky dumps his gross-smelling gym gear and damp towel into the laundry basket they keep in the corner of the gym, before heading to the kitchen to make himself a midnight snack. He’s got a craving for macaroni and cheese.

The compound is in darkness, as would be expected at this hour of night. Bucky doesn’t bother asking FRIDAY to turn on the lights. He passes by the entrance to the common room-lounge area on his way to the kitchen and frowns when he hears the unmistakable sound of hitched sobs and stifled sniffles. He pauses, cocking his head to the side. Who could it be?

Keeping his footsteps as light as a feather, Bucky creeps inside. Though it’s dark, his enhanced eyesight picks out the silhouette of a figure huddled up on one of the couches, lying on their side with their back towards Bucky. He’s got a pretty good idea of who it could be.

“Y/N?” Bucky whispers.

The darkened figure startles, simultaneously uncurling and twisting their body, pushing themselves up onto their forearms. “B-bucky?” you ask, your voice croaky and thick with tears.

“FRIDAY, d’you mind getting the lights? Keep ‘em dim, please,” Bucky murmurs, as he crosses over to the couch and plops beside you, on your right. A few of the ceiling lights come on, casting pale yellow circles around the periphery of the room.

“Hey, hey—doll,” he croons, holding his arms out and letting you curl up against his side. “Hey, it’s okay,” he soothes, as he tucks your head underneath his chin and loops his arms over your shoulders and around your waist. Your body is trembling uncontrollably, breath coming out as uneven sobs. Bucky strokes his hand up and down your back, whispers mindless babble into your hair. The front of his sweatshirt is quickly becoming damp as a result of your tears.

“Hey, now—what’s wrong, doll?” he murmurs, “Why’re you out here all alone, huh? Talk to me.”

“I-I-I,” you stammer, breaking off with a loud hiccup,as you fight to get your lungs to take in a deep enough inhale so that you can talk properly.

Bucky hums sympathetically, settling back against the couch and leaning away from you, to give you some space. You brush the backs of your hands over your cheeks, using the sleeves of your hoodie to wipe away the snot and tears. You glance at Bucky through the corner of your eye and let out a half-strangled sob. “Bu-ucky,” you hiccup, “I-I’ve gotta te-ell you something.”

“Mmm? What is it, doll?” he asks, only half-listening to you. Bucky’s more concerned about trying to get your lungs working the way they should. You sound worryingly like you’re about to have an asthma attack — and Bucky would know what those look like, given the number of times he’s had to help get Steve through one, back in the day — and Bucky’s not sure the extent to which asthma attacks and unborn babies go together.

“I-um. I-I still lo-ove—,” you bite your tongue, cutting yourself off and turning to look away from Bucky.

“Steve?” he offers, “You still love ‘im? S’okay, doll, that’s—,”

“That’s not what I was gonna say,” you interrupt, voice coming out surprisingly sharp, despite your tears. You wipe your nose one more time before turning to look Bucky dead in the eye, paralysing him with the intensity of your gaze.

“I was going to say  _you_ , Bucky.”

If this is a dream, Bucky’s not sure whether it’s one he wants to wake up from. He swallows nervously, before forcing his jaw to move, to shape the words. “M-me? I-I—but, Steve?” he stutters helplessly, brain unable to process what it is you’ve just admitted to.

“ _You_ , Bucky,” you repeat, turning your body so that you can look at Bucky directly, without having to crane your neck around. “I’ve always had feelings for you, okay? And I know—,”

“Wait, what?” Bucky squeaks, head spinning in confusion.

“Will you listen to me? Let me finish?” you ask impatiently. Bucky snaps his jaw shut and nods fervently, gesturing for you to continue with one hand.

“I—yeah. I’ve always had feelings for you, and you’ve—you always ignored me when I tried to show you. So—it didn’t look like things were even gonna work between us, no matter how hard I tried, which is why I started dating Steve—I—to…but now Steve’s  _dead_ , and a twisted, horrible part of me can’t help but feel g-glad, because I don’t think I would’ve been fully happy in that marriage and—but—I— _shit_ this is so  _fucking_ messed up, and—but I feel so  _guilty_ for leading him on and I fucking hate this shit!” you hiss, your voice rising to shriller tones with each word that tumbles out of your mouth.

“I hate it, I fucking  _hate it_! You made me do this!”

What?

Bucky’s mind has gone from confused, to stunned, to completely dumbstruck, all in the space of about ten seconds. He’s speechless. Completely, utterly at a loss for words. There’re so many things that you’ve just said that he needs to question, to examine, to pick apart and analyse — in fact, there’s almost  _too_ many. He’s not sure where to even  _begin_. Although you seem delirious, and even though you’re probably sleep-deprived, there’s no mistaking the solemnity in your tone. You mean every word you’ve just said.

There is one statement that stands out, though. One that is  _screaming_ for more answers, for a further explanation.

“Y/N,” Bucky says softly, fighting to keep his anger in check and hoping that it doesn’t come through in his voice. “What-I—Steve? Why Steve? Did you—what? I don’t understand — were you actually in love with him?” he asks, “Did you—did you use my best friend against me? Did Steve ever mean  _anything_ to you?”

Bucky needs to know. No matter how much he may love you, no matter how much he may  _want_ to love you, there is one unwavering fact when it comes to Bucky and Steve: he’s with Steve ’til the end of the line. And if someone messes with Steve, by default, you can be goddamn sure that Bucky’s getting involved too. If there is one person he would die defending, it’s Steve Rogers.

You’re silent for a minute, chewing over your thoughts. Bucky’s words have apparently struck a chord. You stare off into the distance, fiddling with your fingers and biting on your bottom lip. Perhaps your silence should be alarming, Bucky thinks — if you truly loved Steve, wouldn’t your answer be an immediate, resounding ‘yes’?

“Not at first,” you admit softly, keeping your eyes trained on Bucky’s knees. It means that you don’t notice the barely-restrained fury in Bucky’s expression. “I mean…okay, so what happened was he asked me out on a date, back when you and I were still…yeah. He asked me out.”

You pause, running your fingers through your hair. “I will admit, at first, I wanted to say no, because like I said, I had —  _have_ — feelings for you. And I was still hopeful about us. But…but he asked so nicely, and he looked so hopeful that I—I didn’t have the heart to say no,” you murmur, your expression turning wistfully sad as you recall the memory. “I loved you, but…but— _god_ this is gonna sound so bad,” you chuckle mirthlessly, “Some fucked up part of my brain rationalised that maybe…you seeing me with Steve would kick you into gear, or something—,”

“Y/N, I swear to god—,”

“I’m not done,” you say sharply, fingers clenching into fists in your lap. For a second, your entire body is tensed up, before you take a deep, calming breath, relaxing once more and continuing on with your story. “My point is: fucking sue me if you want to, but initially, I got with Steve with the intent of making you jealous,” you admit.

“Fucking hate me all you want, okay? Hate me because Steve’s not here to do so. I-I deserve it, yeah? I get it, I deserve your hate, your anger — call me a bitch, a coward, an asshole, a liar, whatever you want. I’m all of the above. I get it.  _Hate me_ , Bucky,” you growl brokenly, vicious venom lacing your every word.

Somehow, despite what you’ve just admitted to, Bucky can’t quite do that. He’s—a part of him hates you. Loathes you, in fact. But another part of him — the irrational, stupid, lovesick puppy inside him — still believes in you. He’s—torn. Conflicted. He’s fighting a warped internal battle between what is right and what is less right, because, as he’s come to realise, ‘wrong’ is simply a matter of perspective.

You take a deep breath and continue, your voice calmer, softer now. It sounds almost eerily detached, even. “I started dating Steve despite being fully aware of the fact that he had feelings for me on a level which I did not reciprocate,” you say. There’s an undertone of bitterness and self-hatred to your words. “I knew that I wasn’t being fair. I was being  _mean_. But—the thing is, Bucky, please, please,  _please,_ believe me when I say this…I never,  _ever_ meant for things to get this far.”

“Yeah, right,” Bucky scoffs.

Bucky feels…a lot. He’s enraged, mostly. His entire perspective of you has changed. You’re not the person he once thought you were — that is the glaringly obvious fact that’s staring him in the face, right now. You’re not the person he made you out to be, the woman he fell in love with.

“You could’ve put a stop to it, anytime you wanted to, right?” Bucky points out, not bothering to conceal his pain and anger. In fact, it’s a relief to finally allow those emotions to bleed into his words, a relief to finally voice the thoughts that have been clamouring for attention inside his head.

“You weren’t under any obligations to stay with Steve. And—and besides, if you were done waiting around for me, instead of trying to make me—make me  _jealous_ ,” he spits out, relishing the way you recoil at the word, “Why didn’t you ask me yourself, huh? Why couldn’t  _you_ come to me and ask  _me_ out?”

“I—I fucking didn’t want to pressure you, okay?” you snap, your gaze meeting his once more. There’s a heat in your eyes that makes Bucky want to smirk — he’s fighting fire with fire, and as irrational as that may be, it feels  _good_.

“You—I didn’t know for certain if you felt the same about me,” you explain. “And I—look, I knew that it was overwhelming for you to have to adjust to all this,” you say, flapping your arms and gesturing wildly around you, “So I didn’t want to…to add my own pressures on you. If you fell in love with me—great, but—but I didn’t want you to feel like you  _had_ to date me, or love, or take pity on me, just ‘cause I had feelings for you.”

“And, I guess,” you sigh, your shoulders deflating and losing their tension as you drag a hand down your face, “I thought that with time, I could — maybe, fall in love with Steve and get over you. The heart can only hold so much love in it, right?”

You laugh dejectedly, shaking your head as if you can’t believe how stupid you were. “Fucking  _wrong,_ ” you snort, crossing your arms over your chest. “I was —  _am_ , still am — in love with Steve, but in love with you, as well! I ended up falling for Steve, because who in their right mind wouldn’t do the same?”

“You’re right,” you say, nodding your head slowly, “I was under no obligation to be with him, but I couldn’t end out relationship because I didn’t  _want_ to.” You lift your eyes to meet his gaze. Bucky’s breath catches when he catches the glimmer of unshed tears in yours.

“I love him, I love you, and I couldn’t decide between you two. I’m a fucking selfish bitch, okay?” you huff, tightening your arms around yourself defensively. “There. I said it. I’m a  _fucking selfish bitch_ , who didn’t want to leave Steve even though,” you pause, gulping audibly. “Even though I knew I was hurting you.”

Bucky’s jaw tenses in anger. “You  _knew_ you were hurting me and yet you kept on doing it anyway.”

“I—,”

“Fuck you,” Bucky hisses, “Fuck you, fuck your manipulative games, fuck you for fucking with me, with my head, my feelings, do I—do I mean  _nothing_ to you?”

“You do!” you protest, “Bucky, I swear, please—,”

“Could’ve fucking fooled me,” Bucky continues, bulldozing onwards, as if you’d never interrupted him. “What with the way you treated me, and all.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up, Barnes,” you growl, your own anger finally making your composure snap. “You’re not perfect either, jerk. Look, both of us are in the wrong—,”

“But we wouldn’t even fucking  _be_ in this position had you put an end to things with Steve when you could!” Bucky shouts, not caring if he wakes up half the compound in the process.

You swallow, blinking rapidly to clear the tears that are on the verge of spilling from your eyes. “I—I never meant to get engaged, or anything,” you whisper, “I—it was only ever meant to be a couple of dates with him, and then I was gonna put an end to it and tell him it wasn’t gonna work out between us. I  _swear_  on my life, Bucky, that’s what I fully intended to do. But—,” you laugh deliriously, “You can’t  _help_ but fall in love with Stevie. I didn’t do anything to deserve him, but he—he loved me. A lot. And I—I found myself responding to that.”

“So did I love him initially?” you ask, straightening up and raking your fingers through your disheveled hair, “No. Probably not. Not the way I love you, at least. But do I love him now?” you pause, tipping your head back to stare at the ceiling as you consider your next words.

“ _Goddamn it_ , I’m not sure. I love him, in some capacity. I care for him, and I’m—I’m brokenhearted because he’s dead, but—but it’s still not the way I love you. And…and I feel so  _guilty_  about the fact that—,”

“Don’t sob to me,” Bucky growls, cutting you off when your voice begins to waver and your eyes start to become teary, once more. Your mouth pulls into a tight line. Before you can say anything else, Bucky jumps in, wanting to share his own thoughts.

“I thought the world of you,” Bucky says softly. His tone is low, surprisingly calm, despite the roiling anger inside him. “I thought you were an angel on earth, a goddess among men. Turns out, I was wrong. Stevie should’ve had better than someone like you.”

You snap your head towards him, your eyes ablaze with rage. “Well fuck you, Barnes!” you shout, “Here is my fucking apology for not being good enough, for not meeting your—your  _unreasonably high_ expectations! And—and what the fuck? There are more dimensions of love than just the romantic, okay? Can’t you see that?”

“I—I still  _care_ for him, Bucky,” you explain, your voice more than a little bit hysterical, “And—I dunno, I have a feeling that he knew something was up. Steve—he knew… _something._ About—about…you and me.”

Bucky thinks back to Steve’s video and can’t help but agree with you on that one.

“But—he died with a  _lie_ ,” you say, your voice cracking at the last word. You clear your throat. “I was gonna come clean and tell him, I really was, but I—but now he’s gone. He’s fucking  _dead_ , and he never got to know the truth.”

“No thanks to you.”

You snort indignantly. “Oh that’s rich, coming from you!” you snap, “Mr ‘I keep a million secrets up my sleeve’. You could’ve come clean to  _me,_ to  _Steve_ at any point and yet you didn’t. Do you even love me?”

Bucky inhales sharply. He closes his eyes and takes a moment to calm his thoughts.

It’s now or never.

“I do,” he says quietly. “Y/N—doll, I do, I _do_ love you. Trust me, sweetheart, I’ve loved you for—for as long as I’ve known you.”

Now that he’s started, there’s no stopping. He’s taken that first step — they say the first step is the hardest for a reason — and it’s all downhill from here. It’s like the dam inside Bucky’s mind has finally been burst. The words that he’s been holding back all this while can finally come rushing through. They spill out of his mouth in a mad, uncontrollable torrent.

“I—I need you the way I need oxygen, baby,” Bucky continues, “I love you, I swear, I love you. My heart belonged to you before it ever belonged to me, before I even knew what it was to love!”

You squeeze your eyes shut, biting your lip and turning to look off into the distance, out of the window. Bucky drinks in your profile, which lately, has been more gaunt and waif-like than normal. “Don’t say that,” you whisper tightly, “Don’t say words like that if you don’t mean them. Don’t just say them just for the sake of saying them—,”

“I do mean them!” Bucky says urgently, his hand reaching out to rest on your shoulder. You turn to face him, your gaze locking onto his.  _God_ , the trepidation and fear in your eyes is enough to make his heart break all over again. “Y/N, I—we’ve done some stupid things, but I  _mean_ it. I love you.”

You shake your head sadly, shoulders slumping in defeat. “I thought—I thought hearing those words from you would be the best thing to ever happen to me, but—it’s not,” you say, sighing dejectedly. “It’s not what I needed to hear, right now. Now—now, when things are like this, when I have to have Steve’s kid—,”

“It might not even be his,” Bucky blurts, unthinkingly. His eyes nearly bulge out of his head when he catches onto what he’s just said. What he’s just implicitly admitted to.

Oh so slowly, you turn to face him, your eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What?”

It’s just one word, but one word is more than enough to instil sheer terror in Bucky’s bones. “I—Nothing. Nothing, forget I said that,” he stammers.

“What d’you mean, it might not be his?” you ask, your voice barely masking the threat lying beneath.

“Noth—,”

“Fucking tell me!” you screech, lunging forward and grabbing fistfuls of his sweatshirt. Your expression is positively feral.  _“How_ in all of fucking hell could this baby not be Steve’s and why on this goddamn planet would you fucking know?”

Bucky licks his lips nervously. “It’s not Steve’s,” he repeats slowly, “Or…at least I don’t think it is.”

“Why?” you breathe, voice wavering with wrath, “What makes you say that?”

“You’re—um,” Bucky swallows again, tries to remember how to make his mouth work.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” you growl menacingly, yanking him closer towards you, “This is  _my_ body we’re talking about. If you know something that I don’t,  _spill it_.”

“In KL,” Bucky says quickly, “In—in KL, on that mission, on—on that night, that last night, uh—you were drunk. And—um. And so I brought you back to the hotel and you…you wanted to have sex.”

“What?” you breathe, letting go of his sweatshirt in shock. Your eyes are as wide as saucers. “Why didn’t you—,”

“I tried to stop you—I, okay fine, I admit, you have no reason to believe me on this, but I swear on Steve’s head that I’m not lying to you!” Bucky says vehemently, “I tried to stop you. I told you no, I was gonna leave, but you—but you kept pushing, and I—I couldn’t,” Bucky pauses, blinking away the tears that have suddenly sprung to his eyes. “I couldn’t do anything to stop you.”

“So we fucked,” you say flatly.

“We fucked,” Bucky confirms. “I—um. I didn’t think it was gonna happen, so I didn’t pack any condoms with me.”

“We had unprotected sex,” you murmur, burying your face in your palms.

“I—I did pull out,” Bucky says. “I did! I promise you, I did!” he repeats, throwing his hands up in surrender when you arch an eyebrow in disbelief. “I—I uhh, I really did pull out, but it—it was uh, kinda at the last second, so stuff could’a…y’know…it might’ve been too late.”

Bucky runs his tongue over his chapped lips. His throat feels unnaturally dry, perhaps due to the nerves. He watches as you slump against the back of the couch. You’re gaze is blank and you’re making no sounds. It’s beginning to unnerve him.

“Y/N?” he asks tentatively.

“Fuck you, Barnes,” you say, your voice eerily cool. “Fuck you for doing this to me.”

Maybe it’s your choice of words, maybe it’s the tone with which you’ve spoken, maybe it’s the cumulative effect of the events of the last week, but for whatever reason — that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

“Oh, now  _I’m_ the only bad guy in this equation?” Bucky snorts, “Need I remind you which one of us is the manipulative bitch?”

Your jaw drops open in shock. “I—fuck you, Barnes, you’re one to talk about bad guys — you fucking  _slept with me_  when I was drunk! Taking advantage of me!”

“I said no!” Bucky roars, “I pushed you away, I told you I didn’t want it! You’re as much of a rapist as I am, in this situation!”

You blink rapidly, grinding your teeth together as your hands clench into fists. Bucky holds his breath, waiting for you to lash out, to land your next blow, and is surprised when it does not come.

“You’re—okay, you’re right,” you sigh, rubbing the heel of your palm into your eye tiredly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I forced myself on you, I—I can’t imagine how shitty I made you feel. I’m sorry I put us in that situation, I’m sorry I acted like an idiot, I’m sorry for dragging you into this drama, I’m  _sorry_ , okay?”

“I don’t expect you to forgive me, but it’s there. I’m sorry,” you murmur. You sigh heavily, removing your hand from your face as you look towards Bucky once more.

“But that doesn’t change how I feel,” you continue, your tone sharpening as your rage resurfaces. “The issue’s still there: I’m  _pregnant,_ and this might be your baby. Were you ever gonna tell me about this, by the way? Huh? Were you ever gonna tell how we fucked whilst I was drunk? How you broke all the rules we ever put in place?”

“I—,” Bucky sputters, at a loss for words. “No, you know what? Yeah. Yeah, I did break all out rules. And I’m sorry. I truly  _am_ sorry for that. But I came clean in the end, but—but what the fuck? You can’t be telling me that what you did was any less worse.”

“That’s not what I’m saying—,”

“Then what the fuck  _are_ you trying to say, Y/N?” Bucky asks sharply, “Because my patience is running thin and I am fucking  _done_ dealing with your bullshit.”

You clench your jaw. “Right. Okay, you know what I wanna say? You wanna know the real reason, the reason deep-down why I got with Steve? Wanna see how blackened and fucked up the innermost parts of my soul are?” you snarl. “I got with Steve because I wanted you to fight for me, Bucky.”

“Y/N—,”

“I wanted you to goddamn  _fight_ for me,” you hiss, “Are—are you  _blind?_  Are you an idiot, or something? Could you not see what I—if you truly loved me like you say you do, you would’ve fought for me, asked me to stay.”

“What kind of jacked up logic is that?” Bucky sputters, stunned. “Am  _I_ blind? Fuck you, Y/N, you’re the one that’s blind! Could you— could you not  _see_? Could you not see how obvious I was? I  _adored_  you, clung to you like a needy puppy, but you had no clue, and I don’t know how that;s even possible! I was so fucking  _obvious_! Smiling every time I saw you, laughing every time you talked to me — you didn’t see that?”

“You didn’t see how much  _pain_ you put me through?” Bucky continues, his voice harsh. “I’m pretty sure I was —  _am_ , probably — fucking depressed. When you told me you were dating Steve, when you told me that you’d gotten engaged, when you—,” he breaks off, laughing hysterically, “When you asked me to fucking pick out your  _lingerie_ , like— I was in pain, okay? The entire time! You hurt me!”

“ _Every_ time I saw you two together, happy together — whether or not you were pretending — it hurt like someone was stabbing a million knives into my gut, okay?”

“I was wrong about you,” Bucky spits, “I thought you were an angel, I though you were better than this.”

“No one  _told_ you to idolise me, Bucky!” you scream, lashing out, fighting back just as hard. “I’m fucked up! I am  _fucked up_  in the head, okay? I didn’t  _ask_ to fall in love with both of you, I didn’t  _ask_ you to fall in love with me, I didn’t ask for any of this to happen!”

Bucky leans back against the armrest, runs his fingers through his hair, tugging on the ends slightly. “You know what? Fuck it, I’m done,” hey growls. He pushes himself onto his feet and moves to stalk past you.

Your fingers catch hold of the sleeve of his sweatshirt, pulling him to a stop. “Barnes, sit your ass down—,”

“No,” he hisses, shaking your hand off of him. “You don’t fucking get to tell me what to do, Y/N. I’m heading up. Goodnight.”

Maybe it’s the finality in his tone that sends you into a panic, but whatever the case, you leap up at that moment, your hand gripping onto Bucky’s shoulder. He grits his teeth and resists the urge to brush you away.

“Bucky—,” you whisper, “Please, please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so,  _so_ sorry, please sit down, please—let’s talk.”

“Oh, we’ve talked plenty, Y/N,” Bucky snarls, whirling around to face you. The expression on your face — a cross between on heartbroken, sorrowful and apologetic — gives him pause. The heated words he was going to hurl at you die in his throat.

Bucky sighs heavily as rakes his fingers through his messy hair. “Okay, look. Let’s—I think we need some time to cool off. To…to process everything that’s just been said.”

“Bucky—,”

“We can talk. I’m not—now. Sometime later, not now,” he mumbles, shoving his hands into the pockets of his joggers. “Now…this is too much. I—need some time to process all… _this_ ,” he says, gesturing wildly between the two of you.

“Okay,” you whisper, dropping your hand to the side, letting go of him. “I—I  _do_ love you, Bucky. Still. Even—even if you…even after—I do. I love you.”

Bucky turns away, not wanting to let you see his expression. Something in his heart aches.

Those are the words he’s wanted to hear from you, the words he’s always wanted to hear falling from your mouth for as long as he can remember. Hearing you say them should be a salve on the wounds of his broken heart, but…they’re not. They’re anything but.

They don’t have the same meaning, the same symbolism, the same  _weight_ that they used to. The no longer hold the same promise.

He loves you, still.  _Fucking hell Barnes, will you get a grip on yourself_? he chastises.

Bucky loves you, even though he probably shouldn’t, at this point. Maybe it’s a different kind of love, maybe it’s not to the same extent — he doesn’t know anymore. He hates you and loves you in equal measure and if that doesn’t summarise how screwed up his life has become, then nothing else will.

The thing is, there’s more to the picture now, he has to remember that. How can he abandon you? He can’t just love you, not only because of his promise to Steve — as misguided as that may have been — but also because you’re potentially carrying his  _child_ in your womb.

Bucky feels like an absolute shit hole.

All he’s ever wanted in this life is for you to want him, to love him. And, as it turns out — you do. You  _do_ love him, but you probably hate him, as well. It’s fucked up, is what it is.

“Goodnight, Y/N,” Bucky says tightly, as strides out of the common room. “I’ll—see you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Share this chapter on [tumblr!](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/168309121255/a-messed-up-place-eleven/)


	13. TWELVE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The voice of reason pays Bucky a visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of all the chapter summaries I’ve ever made, this one is my personal favourite :DD
> 
> I’ve reviewed my plan for this story, and I think I’m going to write an extra fluffy chapter for AMUP, making it 15 chapters total, not including the prologue and epilogue. This chapter and the next one are rather dialogue-heavy, so apologies if that’s not what you enjoy :/

Bucky leans back against the kitchen counter and takes a swig of his coffee, grimacing as the overly bitter liquid swirls down his throat. He’d run out of sugar a couple of days ago, and hasn’t been bothered enough to go down to the corner store to pick up more. Bucky sighs as he glances around the small space, noting the dirty dishes that have piled up on the side and the overflowing bin that is just begging to be emptied.

Bucky’s not at the compound. In fact, he hasn’t been there in two months. Bucky’s staying at a little hideaway in Brooklyn which Steve had bought way back when Bucky first returned to the States, having finished his self-imposed mission of hunting down every last HYDRA rat and razing the remnants of that vile organisation to the ground.

He’d arrived here barely three hours after he’d had that talk — more of a screaming match, really — with you. After storming out of the lounge area, Bucky had gone straight to his room, kicked the door shut and crammed some essentials into a backpack. He’d snuck out of his room, then exited the building via one of the service entrances. Bucky had chosen to walk all the way to the city, not wanting to take one of Stark’s cars for fear of being tracked.

The Brooklyn apartment was a place just for Steve and Bucky, a place to escape when things at the compound got too intense; when Stark got too jovial, when Natasha got too inquisitive, when Wilson got too annoying. Sure, it’s more of a broom cupboard than it is an apartment, but it’s got a bed that he can just about squeeze into, a functioning bathroom, a not-too-shabby kitchen and a living area that houses a second-hand TV, a ratty couch and an armchair that smells vaguely of mothballs. Though it’s not a five-star hotel, it’s got it’s own charms.

In truth, Bucky had promised himself that he was only going to stay away for two nights, max, before going back to face the music. But, when day three rolled around, Bucky found that he couldn’t muster up the courage he needed in order to return. So, two nights became three, three nights became seven, a week became two and before he’d realised it, Bucky finds that he’s been here for over eight weeks. And as more time passes, the harder it becomes to make himself leave.

He’s kept himself busy, all this while. Bucky goes on the odd mission every now and then to keep his mind occupied and his skills sharp. They’re always small jobs that reach his ears via his own intelligence network, which he’d built up over his many decades in the field. Though he may no longer be the fearsome Winter Soldier – in mind, anyway – he’s managed to retain the respect and trust within his community that that title had bestowed upon him.  

Still, no matter how hard he may try to take his mind off the problem, the feeling that he’s let you down, in some way, continuously plagues him. Truthfully, there had been no reason for Bucky to leave. The only  _real_ reason he can think of is his cowardliness. He’d promised to stick around and have another talk with you, but that talk has yet to happen.

Bucky is fairly certain that no one on the team knows that he’s here. Well, maybe Natasha, but then again, he’d be suspicious and slightly worried if the  _opposite_  were true. Bucky’s gotten himself a new phone, changed his number, kept a low profile for the last couple of months. He’s basically dropped off the grid. He never  _intended_ to severe all contact when he first left the compound, it just sort of…happened. Bucky doesn’t want to completely prevent you from being able to find him, it’s just…he’s not quite ready to be found, yet.

It’s not that Bucky doesn’t  _want_ to talk to you, that’s not the issue at all. Bucky’s afraid. He’s afraid of what you might say, how your opinions of him might have changed now that you’ve had some time to think things through, stewed in your own thoughts for a while. Bucky doesn’t know how you’ll react. Bucky doesn’t know how  _he’ll_ react to you. There are a lot of uncertainties present in the situation, and if there’s one thing that Bucky hates, it’s dealing with uncertainty.

So of course, he’s chosen to not deal with  _any_  of those uncertainties by walking away from the problem in its entirety.

Bucky knows it’s cowardly, he knows that this course of action solves absolutely nothing, that it’s probably making the problem worse, but he can’t fucking make himself  _do_ anything about it. Avoiding the issue is the exact reason why the two of you are in this situation in the first place; it seems that Bucky hasn’t learnt from his past mistakes. History is cruelly repeating itself. As much progress as the two of you have made by uncovering all the secrets you’d hidden from each other, Bucky still feels like he’s back at square one.

His uncertainty is made even worse by the fact that Bucky doesn’t know whether or not you’ve decided to keep the baby. There’s not a single peep about that in the news — he presumes that the PR team are hard at work keeping those ravenous reporters at bay.

He does, however, have a strong gut feeling that you’ve had an abortion. Bucky’s got no proof for his hypothesis, but feels that now that you know the full story — that the child inside you is most likely his — why would you want to carry the pregnancy to full term? Why would you want to birth a child whose father is a monster like himself?

It’s those kinds of thoughts that haunt his every minute, asleep or awake. 

Bucky finishes off his coffee and dumps his mug into the sink. He leans his palms on the edge of the counter and looks out through the grimy window, over the rooftops of the buildings in the distance. 

 _How did we get here?_ he wonders dejectedly.

The two of you have ended up in a messed up place. It’s lonely and horrible and downright depressing, far more miserable than either of you should ever have to be.

Bucky’s had a lot of time to think, these past few weeks. He’s been spending a lot of time reflecting on his feelings for you. Bucky realises how blinded he was, how infatuated he was with the  _idea_  of love, with his  _image_  of you. You were the first person to show him kindness besides Steve, so of course his heart would form some sort of bond. He loved the perception of you he held in his mind — and when that perception proved to be false, his feelings for you underwent significant changes. 

He’s come to the conclusion that he hates you, in some capacity, but at the same time, loves you. It’s confusing, so utterly confusing, having these two emotions juxtaposing each other so drastically; it’s a never-ending battle in his mind. Sure, it’s probably unhealthy of him to still love you, despite all you’ve done to him, but—well, chocolates are also unhealthy, no? You’re his chocolate — his only vice. 

Nonetheless, Bucky’s got a clearer head on his shoulders, now. It’s as if someone has removed the blindfold from over his eyes. He still has feelings for you, in some manner, but you are no longer his anchor in this world — no, he grounds himself. 

The sound of the keys jingling by the front door interrupts his thoughts.

Bucky tenses, immediately cursing himself for not thinking to change the locks when he’d first moved in. He’s got no time to dwell on who it might be, though, because he can already hear the door creaking open. Bucky dives for cover behind the fridge, which is angled such that he’ll be able to see the intruder as they step into the hallway, before they have eyes on him. His flesh hand sneaks into the gap between the fridge and the wall, prying free the knife he’d wedged in there. He holds it in his hand, familiarising himself with its weight.

All fears are set aside when he hears a familiar booming voice calling “Barnes? You in here?”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Bucky swears, breathing a sigh of relief as he tucks the knife into his boot. He emerges from behind the fridge just as Sam saunters into the living room. “The fuck you doin’ here, Wilson? And how in hell d’you have a key?”

Sam whirls around, a brief smile appearing on his face when he sees Bucky. His brows knit together in confusion at Bucky’s question. “Uhh…Steve gave me one? I used to crash in here every now and then, ‘fore I moved into the compound officially.” As he speaks, Sam pulls off his bomber jacket and takes off his cap and sunglasses, dumping them on the coffee table.

Bucky scrunches up his nose in disdain. “So you knew I was here all this while, then?”

“What? Nah, man. Natasha figured it out first.”

“How?” Bucky presses.

Sam shrugs. “Hell if I know. I asked her the same thing and she just gave me that look, y’know? That creepy smile?” He shudders at the memory. “Anyway, she found out and told me, and we both thought it’d be best to leave you alone, at least for a little bit, see if you’d come back on your own.”

“Which I have not done,” Bucky says curtly, “And for good reason.”

“Oh really?” Sam asks, arching an eyebrow in amusement. “Do tell.”

Bucky huffs. “I needed some space,” he mumbles.

“Bullshit,” Sam scoffs, “Biggest lie I’ve ever seen.”

Sam’s tone sets Bucky on edge, his upper lip curling back into a snarl. “Yeah? Well why the fuck are  _you_  here, Wilson?”

“Can’t a man drop by to say hi to a friend?” Sam asks, spreading his arms wide in a placating gesture.

“No,” Bucky replies, “We ain’t friends, Wilson.”

“True,” Sam admits, nodding slowly, “You  _did_ rip the steering wheel—,”

“I said I was sorry!” Bucky interrupts, throwing his hands up in frustration. For Sam’s sake, Bucky ignores the eye roll that Sam throws in his direction. “At least a hundred times, I might add.”

“I forgive you, but I ain’t forgettin’ about it. And I’ll be dead ‘fore I let you forget, either.”

“Whatever,” Bucky grumbles, “Still haven’t answered my question, Wilson — what  _are_ you doing here?”

Sam sighs, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I’m checking up on you, that’s what,” he replies.

“You—what?”

Sam quirks an eyebrow as he gives Bucky an appraising once-over. “Barnes, I dunno if you’ve noticed, but you look like shit.” He pauses, shakes his head, then elaborates, “No, that’s me being nice — you look like a pile of shit that’s been exposed to the elements for two days, then got dragged through an even bigger pile of shit and rolled over by a tank, or something. What, no hot water in this place? Forget how to do the laundry? Don’t got time to buy food for yourself?”

Bucky frowns, glancing down at himself as Sam speaks. His tattered t-shit and threadbare sweats are a  sharp contrast to Wilson’s crisp and clean look, he has to admit. Bucky’s grown his hair out, to the point where the tips are just brushing his shoulders. He knows that his hair’s a lot shaggier, somewhat stringy and gross looking. Self-care just hasn’t been on the top of his list of priorities, as of late.

“Well fuck you, Wilson,” Bucky mutters, crossing his arms over his chest defensively.

Sam flashes him a gentle smile. “I’m checking up on you because it’s what Steve would’ve wanted me to do—,”

“So you’re only here because of him, then,” Bucky snaps angrily.

“Hold up, lemme finish!” Sam protests, “I was gonna say because I kinda like you, Barnes. In a weird, ‘admire you from a distance’, kinda way.”

Bucky blinks slowly, astonished by Sam’s confession. “W-well, I guess I could say the same about you,” he says begrudgingly.

“But…there’s something I’d like to talk to you about,” Sam says softly, casting his eyes downwards.

Immediately, Bucky’s protective walls are back up. He tenses in anticipation, bracing himself for some bad news. “What?” he grits out.

“Look, I—I think this is the kinda thing that you need to sit down for,” Sam suggests.

“Fine. Sit,” Bucky growls, gesturing for Sam to take the lone armchair. Bucky plops himself in the middle of the couch, situating himself directly opposite the other man.

“Gee, not gonna offer me a drink or something?” Sam remarks dryly, as he gingerly sits down in the proffered chair. At Bucky’s murderous glare, he hastily tacks on, “Alright, alright, no need ta’ be so touchy.”

“Wilson,” Bucky warns, “If you don’t fucking get on with it, I’m gonna throw you out of the goddamn window.”

“Okay, okay, fine,” Sam sighs, clasping his hands in his lap. “It’s about Y/N.”

Bucky clenches his hand into fists, baring his teeth in a grimace as he moves to get off the couch. “Yeah, about that window—,”

“Barnes, you sit your ass down and listen to what I got to say,” Sam says sharply, holding out one hand. “Five minutes, that’s all I’m asking for.”

With much reluctance, Bucky slumps against the back of the couch, sighing tiredly. “Fine. I’m giving you three,” he concedes.

Sam shakes his head in disbelief, clears his throat, then starts explaining. “The day we discovered that you’d left, Y/N…was upset. Like, really,  _really_ upset — locked herself up in her room, wouldn’t come out to talk to anyone for three days straight, not even Wanda.” He pauses, sparing a glance in Bucky’s direction, “And you  _know_ how close those two are. So, the rest of us…kinda thought that those two things had to be connected, somehow. Too much of a coincidence, otherwise.”

Bucky wants to shift uncomfortably in his seat, not happy with where this seems to be going. He doesn’t like what Sam’s implying, but until he’s heard more of the story, Bucky’s unwilling to let his emotions show.

“Anyway,” Sam continues, “She wasn’t eating, during that time, and that’s when Helen told us that Y/N was pregnant. She was getting concerned for Y/N’s health, you see.”

“Wait, you guys didn’t know that she was pregnant?” Bucky asks, brows knitting together, perplexed. “I thought she would’ve told at least Nat or Wanda or something.”

“Nope,” Sam replies, shaking his head. “Didn’t tell any of us. Hold up— _you_ knew that she was pregnant?”

Bucky flounders under Sam’s astonished expression, unsure of how to respond. “I uh—yeah. Yeah, she told me.”

“Okay,” Sam says, drawing out the two syllables questioningly. “Anyway, um, so Helen went and talked to her, and that’s when Y/N finally came out and told us all that she’s pregnant with Steve’s kid.”

“Steve’s?” Bucky echoes, stunned.

“Steve’s, yeah,” Sam confirms, nodding confidently. “Who…who else’s would it be?” he asks, confused.

“Uhh—no one’s, no, nothing,” Bucky stammers, “I, uh—continue.” Bucky’s mind is whirling from this revelation. Why haven’t you told anyone the truth? Why would you be saving Bucky’s face like that?

“Right, so…she told us all that she was pregnant, and that she wanted to keep the baby—,”

“What?” Bucky squawks. He winces at his lack of restraint — he’s supposed to be a master at espionage, for fuck’s sake, he should be better at concealing his emotions than this.

“Yeah, she’s like…what? Four months pregnant now?”

“Oh,” Bucky squeaks, keeping his gaze downcast so that Sam can’t see the guilt in his eyes.  _Holy shit_ you’re four months pregnant and Bucky hasn’t been there to support you.

Crap. He’s already a terrible father.

Bucky sighs, raking his fingers through his unkempt hair. “But…Wilson, that doesn’t answer my question: why’re you here?” Bucky repeats.

“I’m gettin’ to that part of the story now,” Sam grumbles. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he looks driectly at Bucky. “She just hasn’t been the same since you’ve left.”

“It—it could just be because Steve’s gone,” Bucky points out, throat going dry at the way Sam’s looking at him.

Sam shrugs, tipping his head in acknowledgement. “Well, yeah, sure, but you guys…you guys used to be tight, once upon a time. And then—she got with Steve and the two of you sorta drifted apart, but we could — or at least,  _I_ could — tell that that you still kinda cared for her.”

“I do,” Bucky admits, voice quiet.

“The why’d you leave?” Sam asks, the briefest hint of anger entering his tone.

Bucky bristles in response. “What does me leaving having anything to do with her?” he snaps, “I just needed some space, after Steve passed—,”

“What you  _need_ is people lookin’ out for you, Barnes,” Sam interrupts, holding a hand up to halt Bucky in his tracks. “Supportin’ you, helping you through this. You can’t do this alone, Bucky. You..don’t need to do this alone,” Sam adds, voice softening with the last statement.

Bucky pushes aside the slight heartache that has flared up in his chest. “This isn’t about me,” he says gruffly.

“You’re right,” Sam agrees, “This is about Y/N, and she needs you right now.”

“But—she’s got the rest of you guys to look out for her, why does she need me?” Bucky asks, confusion and frustration tinging his voice.

“Because you, for whatever reason, are caught up in all this,” Sam explains, waving his hand in concentric circles. “Whatever’s got Y/N so upset has something to do with you, or at least with you leaving.”

“No it doesn’t,” Bucky says sullenly, expression twisting into a scowl.

“Barnes,” Sam sighs.

“What?”

“You know something.”

Bucky bites his tongue, unwilling to respond to that.

“You do,” Sam pushes, leaning even further forward, “ _What_ Bucky? What d’you know? Talk to me, please.”

“I— _can’t_ ,” Bucky murmurs, a hot flush rising to his cheeks as he thinks back to the long and complicated and distinctly  _not_ fairytale-like story of you and him, recalls how fucked up and twisted it is.

“Why?” Sam asks.

“Because…Y/N. Her—,” he cuts himself off, turning away to look out of the window, taking a moment to tamp down the shame and guilt whirling around inside him.

“Her what? Dignity? Privacy? Is that what you’re worried about?” Sam offers. “You know that what you tell me stays between you and me, right? It stays within these four walls. You want me to strip butt naked? ‘Cause I will, just to show you I ain’t wired up or nothin’.”

Bucky winces at the unpleasant mental image. The tension in his shoulders does dissipate a little, however. “Thanks for the offer, but no thanks,” he mutters.

“Look, no one knows I came here, I swear on my life,” Sam tells him, “I’m just…concerned for her, concerned for you, and I just…I wanna help.”

Still Bucky says nothing, too ashamed to admit all the things that have happened between the two of you. He  picks at the knee of his sweatpants, twisting a thread which has come free around his finger.

“Bucky,” Sam says, voice barely louder than a murmur, “I literally don’t care what you could say to me. I’ve seen some pretty fucked up shit in my life, alright? I won’t judge, I promise you. I will listen, for as long as you want me to, and not judge.”

Bucky closes his eyes and takes a shaky breath. His pulse is roaring in his ears and his mouth feels unnaturally dry. Telling Sam can’t be any worse than telling you, can it? He swallows nervously, clears his throat, then slowly cracks open his eyes to find Sam staring back at him, a patient smile on his lips.

And so Bucky tells.

He tells Sam  _everything_.

Bucky tells him about the friends with benefits relationship going on between you and Bucky, all the rules you’d put into place. How you’d started dating Steve and how gutted Bucky had felt on the back of that. How Bucky later found out that you’d done that with the intent of making him jealous. He tells Sam of the night he’d gotten drunk off Asgardian mead and admitted his feelings for you to Steve. Sam learns about the mission in Malaysia, and all the consequences of that one night of passion.

Sam listens to it all, not once interrupting him. His face betrays no emotion whatsoever.

Bucky tells Sam of the emotional agony he was in. He tells Sam of the turmoil inside his head after Steve’s death, after you’d told him about your pregnancy. His story ends with the last talk he’d had with you, the night that Bucky had fled from the compound.

When he’s done, Bucky sits back in his couch, feeling slightly winded, a little dizzy, but a whole lot better. It’s as if a weight has been lifted from his chest. He feels infinitesimally lighter, like there’s less of a burden on his shoulders.

Sam hums, nodding his head slowly as he digests Bucky’s story. “Wow,” he breathes, “That’s…wow.”

Bucky snorts. “Was hoping for something more profound than that, Wilson.”

Sam chuckles briefly, before he catches Bucky’s eyes and sobers up. “Okay, so here’s the part where we have a deep discussion about everything you’ve just told me,” Sam says, “You think you’re up for that?”

“No,” Bucky admits, “But let’s do it anyway.

“Alright, first question then. Why’d you leave?” he asks quietly.

“Are you—for real?” Bucky sputters, “You’re really asking me that question?” Of all the questions to start off with, why on earth did he have to choose  _that_ one?

Sam cocks his head to the side. “Yes, of course.”

Bucky swallows, tips his head back to look at the peeling ceiling as he considers his answer. “I—I left because…I was scared. ‘Cause I  _am_  scared,” he replies.

“Of what?” Sam presses.

“Of…what happens next,” Bucky sighs, “That argument — I know that the truth was gonna come out at some point, it had to. I could’ve tried to bottle it up inside me forever but…I wouldn’t have been successful. The pressure would’ve given way, soon enough.”

“Doesn’t answer the question, Barnes, you’re deflecting.”

“Okay fine,” Bucky snaps, “I’m scared ‘cause I don’t know what’s going on inside her head. I—she lied to  _Steve_ , Wilson, she—she played us both. Okay, okay, I admit, that sounds kinda evil, which is not how I meant it, but that’s…that’s what happened! And the thing is, it worked! For a while, at least to some extent, she got away with it.”

A moment of silence passes as Sam takes that in. “So…you’re scared she’s gonna lie to you?” he asks.

Bucky takes a moment to chew over the question, examining it inside his head. “No…I don’t think so. I don’t think she’d do it again. I think she’s as tired of the lies as I am.”

“Then what?”

Bucky growls under his breath in frustration. “Fuck if I know, Wilson,” he grumbles, “I don’t know why I left. I—maybe it’s because I’m scared that she won’t want me, anymore. Maybe I’m scared that I’m not good enough for her, now that she knows the truth—,”

“You’re scared of her rejection?” Sam clarifies.

“…Or maybe, I’m scared of rejecting  _her_ ,” Bucky breathes, pieces of the puzzle clicking into place as his own understanding begins to solidify. “Now that I…now that I know who she is, what she’s capable of, maybe I’m scared that I won’t  _want_  her anymore.”

Sam makes a thoughtful humming noise in the back of his throat. “Sounds to me like you’re scared of the unknown,” he comments, “You’re scared that the future you have planned out in you head is not the one that’s gonna play out in reality.”

Bucky nods slowly, mulling over that suggestion. “I…yeah. I think that’s it. Fear of the unknown.”

He looks up when Sam exhales loudly, watching as he leans back in his armchair and crosses his legs at the knee. “Hate to break it to you, Barnes,” Sam drawls, “But that’s just kinda the way life works. You can plan out your future all you want, but in the end, you’re still gonna end up taking a lot of risks.”

“But that’s the thing,” Bucky whines, “I don’t know if this is a risk worth  _taking_. What do I do, Sam? How do I make things better?”

Wilson raises his eyebrows, a little smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Look man, I’m not gonna tell you what to do—,”

“Aw, c’mon—,”

“—but I  _am_ gonna tell you what I think about all this.”

Bucky blinks owlishly, thrown by the sudden turn of events. “Yeah. Okay, yes — please do, I need to listen to a voice that’s not coming from inside my head, for once.”

Sam laughs softly, “Yeah. I’ll bet you do.”

He’s silent for a minute, shifting in his seat as he plans out what he wants to say. “‘Kay, here’s what I think,” he begins, “From what you’ve told me, I can tell that you’re feelings a whole lot of emotions. I’m reading anger, I’m reading jealousy, fear, sadness. But the thing that keep coming up, over and over? The emotion that’s overwhelmingly obvious? Guilt.”

Sam’s tone gentles as he cocks his head to the side. “You feeling guilty, Bucky?”

“Well…” Bucky swallows, rubs his palms up and down his thighs nervously as he runs his tongue over his bottom lip. “Well, yeah. I do, kind of. I…hurt her.”

Sam narrows his eyes in suspicion. “You don’t sound too sure about that.”

Bucky gnaws listlessly on his bottom lip, wracking his brain for an answer. Wilson’s right. Bucky  _does_  feel guilty for hurting you, for dragging you through hell, but that’s not the full picture. That’s only the surface issue; what bothers Bucky is something hurting him on a deeper level. “I hurt her…but—but I got hurt too,” Bucky murmurs, after a while, “But…I guess I feel kinda guilty for blaming her?”

“And there we go,” Sam says, clapping his hands together. “ _That’s_  what I’m seeing, what’s glaringly clear to me — you hurt her, she hurt you.  _But_ , at the same time, you’re hurt and she’s hurt. As far as I can see, you’re both victims and perpetrators in this case.” He sits up a little straighter in his chair, puffing his chest out authoritatively, “But what you gotta realise is that it’s not a matter of tryna outcompete each other to see who can hurt the other person worse, or tryna to out-do each other and see who can shoulder more pain.”

“Look, both of you were idiots, but both of you ‘fessed up to your sins, at the end of the day. And  _that’s_  what matters,” Sam says, slapping his palm on the armrest for emphasis. “What matters is that in the end, you both came clean and laid all your cards on the table.”

It really is nice, being able to talk to an unbiased third party about all this. Bucky’s mind feels instantly cleared, as if Sam has plucked out the mess inside his head and arranged into neat, ordered piles. “So what now?” Bucky asks.

“What d’you mean, what now?”

“Where do we go from here?” Bucky clarifies, “I mean, I know we need to move forward, but…I guess I’m asking for directions. Which  _way_ is forward?”

“That’s something you two need to decide for yourselves,” Sam replies smoothly.

Bucky groans, dragging his flesh hand down his face out of frustration.

“Look, I’m not her—,” Sam points out.

“Thank  _god_ ,” Bucky mutters darkly.

“—soI I can’t pretend to know what she’s thinking,” he explains. “If you wanna know what she’s thinking—,”

“—I gotta go talk to her myself,” Bucky finishes, sighing in resignation.

“Exactly,” says Sam, nodding encouragingly. “S’the only way you’ll know for certain.”

“Wilson, I—,”

“Alright, listen up,” Sam says, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward once again. He clasps his hands in front of him. “Listen—y’know, good foundations are the key to a good building, right?”

“…yeah,” Bucky says hesitantly, dragging the syllable out. His brows are furrowed in confusion at Sam’s unexpected change of topic. “Wilson, how is—,”

“Shut up, I just came up with a good analogy!” Sam cries, holding both palms out towards Bucky to silence him. “Alright, good foundations are the key to a solid building, and the way I see it, y’all need to rebuild from the bottom.”

Sam starts gesturing animatedly with his hands, sketching out a skyscraper in the air using his index finger. “Your building — which represents your relationship, or whatever the hell it is you had together — used to have shitty foundations. Like, real fucking crap, Barnes. Tower could’ve been knocked over by a strong breeze. Those old foundations couldn’t have held up a shack, let alone hold up the weight of all the secrets you two were piling on it. But now, that entire facade has been knocked to the ground. Flattened.  _Completely_ ,” Sam says, making huge flourishes with both hands.

“So you gotta start from the bottom, again. You’ve gotta rebuild this, make it into whatever you and her want it to be,” he continues. “I’m not gonna tell you what that is, but…you’ve got a chance at a fresh start, Barnes,” Sam says, the corners of his lips upturning into a smile. “I think you’d be crazy to not take it.”

There is a lull in the conversation as Bucky’s brain digests what Sam’s just said.

“Damn, Wilson, that was fucking awesome,” Sam mutters under his breath, quietly fist-pumping the air.

“Careful, flying chicken,” Bucky chuckles, “Any higher and you’ll get too close to the sun. Your wings might melt.”

Wilson rolls his eyes sarcastically. “My wings happen to be made of something more resilient than wax, Barnes,” Sam retorts. “But thanks for your concern, anyway.”

“No problem,” Bucky says solemnly.

Sam snorts, shaking his head in amusement as he leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers under his chin. “But yeah, that’s the way I see it,” he says, “You’ve got a clean slate. You’ve both laid all your cards on the table and now you can either choose to push them aside and start a new game, or continue staring at the terrible hands that life has dealt you.”

“D’you want my opinion?” Sam asks.

“Not particularly,” Bucky answers.

“Good, ‘cause here it is: I’m not saying that you need to forgive her right now, if ever. I’m not saying that  _she’s_ gonna forgive you, right now or at all, in fact. I’m  _certainly_ not telling either of you to forget that any of this ever happened. What I  _am_ saying is for you to both accept what’s happened and…move forward, wherever forward may be.”

“S’easier said than done,” Bucky groans, crossing his arms over his chest and slouching further into the couch cushions.

“True,” Sam concedes, “But it ain’t ever gonna get done if you just sit there and do nothing about it. Look, you said you’d talk to her, and I think that’s what you need to do.” He pauses, then adds, “And actually  _talk_ to her this time, don’t just shout at each other and throw around insults. Listen to what she’s got to say, and if she cares for you as much as she says she does, she’ll do the same for you.”

Bucky swallows, looks towards Sam as he combs his fingers through his hair. “And what if she doesn’t?” he asks quietly.

“Doesn’t what? Care, or listen?”

“Both.”

Sam stills, tipping his head forward as he considers the question. “Well then, I guess you’d better decide whether that’s a love worth fighting for. Communication’s the key in a good relationship, ain’t that what they say?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Bucky sighs.

“Like I said: I ain’t gonna tell you what to do, Barnes. You’re a grown ass man, you can make your own decisions.”

“Fucking hell,” Bucky grumbles, “That’s really useful, Wilson. Real useful.” He decides to get more comfortable by twisting his body so that he’s lying on his back on top of the lumpy couch cushions.

“Buuuuuut,” Sam drawls, “I can pass on some potentially useful information.”

Bucky’s ears perk up and he lifts his head up inquisitively, at that. “What?” he asks.

“Tony, Bruce and Pepper are all staying in the tower this weekend. Clint’s taking Natasha back to his farm, and I’m taking Wanda to visit my mom’s place, ‘cause they love each other,” Sam reveals, checking each person off on his fingers.

Bucky arches an eyebrow in surprise. “You’re leaving Y/N alone in the compound?”

“Well, I offered her a ride, and so did Clint, but she turned us down,” Sam explains. “Said she just wanted some time alone.”

 _Well then,_ Bucky muses. Aloud, he replies, “Yeah. Uhh—thanks, Wilson. I’ll…I’ll think about it.”

Sam nods curtly, slapping his hands on his knees one last time before rising out of his chair. “You do that. But don’t think too much,” he adds, “God knows you’ve done too much thinking already. I can practically  _see_ the steam comin’ outta your ears, old man. Gonna give yourself a heart attack if you think any harder.”

“Real funny,” Bucky snarks, but there’s no heat to his tone. “I think it’s time you head on out, Wilson.”

“I think so too,” Sam agrees, giving Bucky a half-hearted wave as he shrugs into his jacket and puts on his cap and sunglasses.  

“Sam?” Bucky calls, just as the man in question starts walking over to the door.

Sam whirls around. “Yeah?”

“Thanks,” Bucky says, a small smile curling on his lips.

The smile he receives in return is a genuine one, encouraging and optimistic, all at the same time. “You’ll be okay, Barnes,” Sam says.

Bucky closes his eyes and listens to the sounds of Sam’s retreating footsteps with a stupid grin on his face and a lightness in his heart that hasn’t been there for a long while. For the first time in goodness-knows-how-long, Bucky actually  _knows_ what he needs to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Share this chapter on [tumblr!](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/168389770945/a-messed-up-place-twelve/)


	14. THIRTEEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky pays a visit to the compound, to have a chat with you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that lots of you have been waiting to see how this chapter plays out, so I hope that it lives up to your expectations!
> 
> *A small portion of the dialogue was inspired by ‘One Last Time’ by Ariana Grande.
> 
>  ** _Important note:_** Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait until next year for the remaining three parts to this fic. I’ll be going somewhere between Dec 20th-Dec 30th and won’t be able to take me laptop with me. Sorry about that. I hope you all understand that real life comes first, sometimes

The compound may as well be deserted.

That’s pretty much the only thought that Bucky allows himself to have as he punches in his entry code at the front door. All other thoughts would thrust him into a state of panic, despair or some combination of the two, and none of those options are ideal, at this moment in time. Right now, he needs to ensure that he is as calm  and level-headed as possible. The front door swings open with a quiet hiss. Bucky steps inside, shrugging off his bomber jacket as he glances around the entryway.

“Hey FRIDAY,” he says, taking his cap off his head and ruffling his fingers through his hair, so as to make himself look less like a hobo.

“Welcome back, Sergeant Barnes,” says FRIDAY, “Your presence has been missed.”

Bucky’s lips twitch of their own accord. He’s not sure if AI systems are supposed to be able to express emotions, but that sounded like as much of a sentimental greeting as Bucky’s ever heard. “Thanks, FRIDAY. Hey, listen — d’you know where Y/N is?”

“In her room, sir,” is the swift reply he receives. “I should warn you — Miss Y/L/N has not been very accepting of company, as of late.”

Bucky takes note of the warning but chooses to ignore it,  figuring that he can deal with whatever it is you decide to throw at him — in the literal  _and_  verbal sense. He strides confidently down the hallway, heading in the direction of your room. “Thank FRI!” he calls over his shoulder, “I’ll bear that in mind.”

The nerves hit him like a derailed train once he’s standing outside your door. His fist is raised, poised to knock. Bucky swallows down his the uneasiness sloshing around inside him, to no avail. He drops his hand, tugging on the hem of his plain black t-shirt listlessly as he chews on his bottom lip.

Though his talk with Sam has helped to clear his mind and geared him up for the confrontation that is about to take place, Bucky can’t stop himself from feeling downright terrified. Your last talk with him had not gone particularly smoothly, so he’s praying to the heavens above that this one doesn’t end in the same manner. Taking a deep breath to steel the butterflies in his stomach, Bucky raps his knuckles on the door, before stepping back to wait and see what happens.

“Who is it?” you call.

“It’s me,” Bucky answers.

A pause, then, “Bucky?” you cry in disbelief.

“Yeah, Y/N,” Bucky confirms. He runs his trembling flesh hand through his hair. “Yeah, it’s me. Um…look, I’m really sorry I ran out on you, but…I’m here, now, so…so can we talk?” He places his hand on the handle and gives it a turn, only to discover that the door is locked. Of course it is. Bucky squints his eyes and studies the lock closely. He figures that he could probably bust the door down if he wanted to, but then…that probably wouldn’t sit too well with you. Wrong first impression, and all.

“Can we  _talk_?” you repeat incredulously, “Bucky, I have waited to two whole months to talk to you!”

Bucky winces at your tone.

“Why is it that you get to decide when we get to talk, huh?” you ask, your voice getting louder. Bucky hears footsteps coming from inside your room and thinks that you must be making your way to the door. “You break off all contact with me, with the  _team_ , you leave us no way to get ahold of you — nothing, Bucky! I have been worried  _sick_ over you.”

“I know, I know,” Bucky sighs, letting his forehead thump against the cool wood of your door. “Dick move, I know. Look, Y/N, doll, I’m  _sorry_. I really am. I can’t — I dunno how I can make that up to you, but—,” he swallows, “The past is the past. I can’t change that, but I  _am_ here now, and—and I want to talk to you, if that’s okay?”

“Sure, we can talk,” you grumble.

“Can you…can you open the door?” Bucky asks hesitantly.

“I said we can  _talk_ , Bucky,” you remind him,“I ain’t opening the door.” Your voice is clear enough for Bucky to presume that you must be right on the other side.

“Ohhh….kaaaay?” Bucky says, perplexed.

“I’m gonna sit on this side,” you say, “And you’re gonna sit on the other side, and we’re gonna talk.” The door groans suspiciously, rattling on its hinges. Bucky hears a loud thumping noise coming from your side as you — presumably — collapse in front of the door.

“Is there a reason why you don’t want to do this face to face?” Bucky asks, giving  into your strange request because it’s apparent that you won’t be swayed. He settles his back against the door and allows his legs to sprawl out in front of him.

There’s a moment of silence, a loud sigh, then, “Bucky, I look like shit right now.”

“I don’t care, doll,” Bucky says fervently, twisting around to look at the door over his shoulder. “I don’t care what you look like, I just wanna talk. M’pretty sure I’ve seen you looking worse, anyway.”

“No…no, it’s not just that,” you admit, “It’s just…I don’t think I’ll be able to do it if I have to look at you.”

“Gee, am I that ugly?” Bucky jokes, “I showered today. And I shaved too, I swear!”

You snort. “That’s a shame. I like you with some scruff.” After another pause, you sigh heavily,“But…no—no, that’s not what I mean. I just—I think I’d be calmer if…if I just listened, y’know? If I don’t see you, if I  _can’t_ see you, and you can’t see me, then we’ll have to listen to each other more, right? And we can’t infer what the other means just from facial expressions and body language and shit, right?”

Bucky tips his head to the side, corners of his mouth pulling into a slight frown as he thinks over your reasoning. In the end, he just sighs and shakes his head in amusement. “You’re a strange woman, Y/N,” he remarks.

“You’re telling me,” you retort dryly.

“So then,” Bucky says, “Talk.”

“What d’you want me to talk about?”

Bucky hesitates, toying with the seam of his jeans as he considers. There are many things that the two of you need to talk about, so many topics that he could pick to start you off with. “Steve,” he says finally, “Let’s talk about Steve.”

“Okay,” you reply. “That’s still…a pretty huge area. Which…what d’you want me to talk about, exactly?”

“Your feelings for him,” Bucky replies. “I mean, I think I kinda know what they are, but…but him or me, Y/N? Who did you love more?”

“Oh, askin’ me the tough questions, straight off the bat, huh?” you chuckle mirthlessly. “Well…here’s the thing. I loved Steve. I  _still_  love him, in fact. But—and don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m being honest when I say that my love for him was still  _nothing_ compared to what I felt, what I  _feel_  for you. If my love for him was a drop of water, my love for you would fill an ocean.”

“So why’d you lead him on?” Bucky asks.

“I never meant to lead him on!” you cry frustratedly, head thumping against the door. “No, hold up, sorry,” you sigh, “Okay, I never wanted to lead him on. Like I told you, I never meant to fall in love with Steve in the first place. I just—I was just…yeah. Initially, I started that relationship with the intent of making you jealous, sue me, I’m a horrible person. But…karma’s already got me back. The more I hung out with Steve, the more I fell in love with him.”

“It was a head over heart kinda thing, Bucky,” you explain tiredly. “It sucked, because my heart wanted you, but I never thought that we could work out. So I…I just…my head told me that Steve was the right one. The he was enough. That I could be happy with him.”

“Why did you think we wouldn’t work out?” Bucky asks curiously, sitting up a little straighter to hear your answer.

“In truth? I don’t know,” you sigh. “Maybe…I dunno. Y’know, I don’t think I believed that we  _wouldn’t_ work out, per se. I don’t think that’s the problem. The problem was…I was too scared to find out whether or not we did. Because—the fear of losing you? Completely? Bucky, that idea terrifies me more than anything else.” There’s a raw vulnerability in your voice that forces Bucky to squeeze his eyes shut and breathe deeply through the acute pain in his chest.

He’s not exactly sure how to interpret your words.

Bucky sighs, shifting around to tuck his legs underneath him. “But…but I—how could you? I mean, I  _know_  why you got with Steve, I think, but how could you…bring yourself to—to pretend that you liked him? Even if it was only for a little while?”

You’re silent for a moment. “Because I was liar,” you say, your voice thick and croaky, as if you’re fighting to hold back tears. “Because I  _am_ a liar, Bucky. That’s why. I’m not…good. Not completely good, at least. I’ve done terrible things to people who didn’t deserve it.”

“Y/N—,”

“M’no angel, Bucky,” you confess, “M’not a goddess, nowhere close. With the amount of sinning I’ve done lately, m’probably closer to hell than I am to heaven. I’m a failure — I get that, I realise that. A few days alone with nothin’ but your own thoughts to keep you company really does help you to come to your senses,” you sigh. “I should’a done you better, I should’a done Steve better. Neither of you deserve a liar and I’m sorry that that’s…who you fell in love with.”

Bucky was aware that coming to talk to you would be tough for him to stomach, but he never expected the conversation to be  _this_ difficult. The uninhibited emotion in your voice is ripping him apart, making him question some of the assumptions and grudges he made against you. Your admission is not enough to make him forgive you completely, of course it isn’t. But—it might make the journey to forgiveness a little easier.

“Bucky?” you ask timidly, pulling him out of his reverie. “Can you—can I ask you a question, now?”

“Sure, doll.”

“What d’you think about all that?” you ask, “I mean, you’re Steve’s best friend, so—I know you guys were close. How’re—you takin’ this?”

“It hurts,” Bucky admits. “Yeah, it hurts. I—I don’t appreciate the fact that you did it, and to be honest, I can’t support the reasons as to  _why_ you did it — your justification to me seems…flawed, but—but I get you, in some weird way.” He pauses to take a breath, clasping his hands together in his lap. “Yeah, there  _are_ multiple dimensions of love, and I can see that you loved me and him in different ways. I think it’s okay for someone to have that. But equally, I think your head was in a confused place.”

“I was disillusioned,” you sigh, shuffling noises coming from the other side of the door as you re-situate yourself against it. “I wanted you to…I dunno, prove yourself to me? No, no, that’s not—that’s not it,” you say hastily, “You  _have_ proved yourself to — you know what? You don’t even fucking  _need_ to prove yourself to me. I don’t—you’re enough! You’re more than enough, more than perfect, just the way you are, Buck.”

“I did what I did because…fuck, I’m not even sure why, to be honest. I don’t…I don’t know, I legit have no fucking clue why my past self ever thought that anything I did was a good idea. I tried to…I wanted an idealised, completely unrealistic romance, but — and when I didn’t get it, I tried to manufacture one of my own, I guess. And when  _that_ didn’t work, I tried to project blame onto you, which was completely uncalled for.”

“I’ll say,” Bucky mutters.

“My expectations of you, of  _us_ were too high, too unrealistic,” you continue, voice becoming more animated, words tumbling out of your mouth at full-speed. “I shouldn’t have been expecting all that in the first place. I told you that I never intended to hurt you, or guilt-trip you, but—,” you cut yourself off, going silent for a minute as you mull over your thoughts.

“Sometimes, it’s the thought that counts,” you say quietly, “Other times, it’s the end result that matters. And in this case…I think the second statement holds more truth.”

“You know what?” you cry, voice suddenly spiking in volume, making Bucky’s pulse jump. “I’m not even gonna try justifying myself anymore,” you say sharply. “You’re right, Bucky, my reasons were all fucked up. There’s nothing I can say to fully justify what I’ve done, both to you and to Steve. You’re right. I could’ve come to you first. But…but I didn’t because…well, because I was scared of your rejection, that’s why.”

Bucky is floored. Completely, utterly speechless. That was the best apology he could’ve ever hoped for and  _more._ Still, apologies are only one part of the solution. The wounds you’ve inflicted upon him are still scabbing over, barely healed in most places. Your apology is enough to take away some of the pain, but it’s not everything he needs right now. It’s not some miracle cure. He still needs time to heal.

He takes a shuddery breath, surprised to discover that his heart is thumping erratically in his chest. Bucky licks his dry lips, before opening his mouth to speak.

“I’m…not saying that you’re completely innocent,” he starts, voice slow and hesitant. “I—far from it, actually. I’m not…not absolving you of your crimes, and I’m not sure I’m forgiving you for what you’ve done, either. I’m not even sure if I’m the right person to be asking for forgiveness  _from_ ,” he admits, laughing bitterly. “But, I accept that you’ve made some mistakes in the past and…I can optimistically hope that you’ve learnt from them.”

You bark out a sharp, surprised laugh. “Thank you, for that. Y’know, the more that I think about it, the more I realise how…stupid I was. I don’t know why I ever thought that dating Steve whilst being in love with you would ever work out in my favour. I was an idiot,” you murmur.

“Hey—,”

“And I think your feelings are justified,” you add, ignoring Bucky’s interruption. “I’m not expecting forgiveness from you anytime soon, if at all, Bucky. But—but thank you for being honest about that. I don’t…I realise that I don’t necessarily deserve your forgiveness, now or ever. I know I don’t deserve it, but—Bucky?”

“Yeah?”

You pause to take a shaky breath. “If you  _do_ choose to stay with me, if you choose to try an’ see if we can make things work between us — and I’m not in any way saying that you have to,” you add hastily, “I’m just—if you  _do_ , then I swear I’ll make it worth it. I promise to be better. I promise to be…not an angel, but a…less terrible, less bitchy version of myself.”

“B-but I’ll say it again,” you stammer nervously, “You don’t have to be with me if you don’t want to, at all. You know I’d…I would understand if you hate me.” You let out a harsh, self-depreciating chuckle, “I kinda hate myself, to be honest.”

“I don’t… _hate_ you, hate you,” Bucky says quietly, fingers fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt again. “Y’know how there’re multiple dimensions of love? I feel like there should be multiple levels of hate, too. I…I think I have a strong loathing for what you  _did_ , but I don’t hate  _you_ as a person, inherently.” Bucky shrugs one shoulder, even though you’re not there to see him do it, “Good people do bad things, sometimes. Or, perhaps I should say, good people make bad decisions, every now and then.”

You’re silent for about half a heartbeat. “Um…hello, are you sure that you’re James Buchanan Barnes? Because if so, I’d just like to know if you’ve had a brain transplant or something?” you ask sarcastically. “Bucky — never in my life did I think that you were capable of such wisdom.”

Bucky blinks slowly. “I…am not sure whether that’s a compliment,” he teases, lips pulling into a lopsided smirk.

“Pretend that it is,” you deadpan.

Bucky rolls his eyes, shakes his head in amusement and readjusts his position, bringing his knees up so that he can rest his forearms on them. “Okay,” he says, “I picked out the first topic, so you get to pick out the second.”

“Oh, is this how things are working tonight?” you ask, your voice lighthearted and playful.

“Yep,” Bucky replies, popping the ‘p’.

“KL,” you say decisively, after a brief moment of thought.

Bucky’s heart skips a beat in his chest. “Uhh—shit, can I retract my previous statement?”

“Nu-uh,” you sing-song.

He groans resignedly, letting the back of his head thunk against the door. “Okay then,” he sighs, “What about KL?”

“When we…fucked,” you say slowly, “What—was going through your head? What—were you thinking?”

“Umm,” Bucky mutters, swallowing nervously. He runs his fingers through his hair, tugging a little on the ends as he thinks. “Well. I, uh…I had feelings for you, obviously, but you were engaged to Steve, and Steve’s my best friend, so I wanted to…not do it, both for your sake and for mine,” he says. “But—at the same time,” Bucky pauses, running the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip, “I kinda wanted to do it. I—wanted you, but—not like that. Not…under the circumstances we were under.”

“I didn’t want to do it, but I did it anyway,” he growls, voice tinged with frustration. Just the thought of that night makes him queasy, uneasiness swirling in his gut and leaving a foul taste in the back of his throat. “Every emotion I had was a double-edged sword, y’know? I wanted you, but I didn’t. It felt good, but it didn’t. It was all bittersweet.”

“But even so. Honest-to-god that was…” Bucky says, voice softening, fondness creeping into his tone just as a wistful smile curls on his lips, “The best night of sex I’ve ever had in my life. S’just a shame that it also had to be the worst.”

“Damn,” you mutter, “I wish I remembered it, then.”

Bucky gives a startled laugh. “Yeah. No—I don’t think you do. Y/N, emotionally, I felt  _terrible_ , during and a long while after,” he says desperately. “Everything about it was wrong,  _so wrong_. It shouldn’t have ever happened, and I—I’m sorry for what I did to you, and where you’ve ended up, and—,”

“Hey, hey, none of that,” you say soothingly, drawing Bucky back from the edge of a full-blown breakdown. “S’my turn to talk now, okay?”

“Sure,” Bucky replies, voice raspy.

“ _I’m_ sorry, Buck,” you say.

“Wait were you not—,”

“No, no, hear me out,” you interrupt. Bucky forces himself to take a deep breath and relax. When he doesn’t speak, you continue. “I’m gonna be honest here. When you told me that we’d had sex, I was—shocked. But y’know what my first thought was? I hated  _myself_. I didn’t hate you, I was angry at  _myself_ for putting us into that position.”

“I trust you, Bucky,” you say, “If you told me that you said no, if you told me that you didn’t want it, if you told me that you’d pushed me away to put a stop to things — I am 100% confident that you did all those things. So. Did you take advantage of me when I was drunk? Maybe. But _I_  put you into that setting in the first place. And for that? I’m appalled with myself,” you growl, voice laced with bitter self-hatred.

“Y/N—,”

“Remember that time Tony hosted a party for Steve’s birthday? Last July?”

“Yeah,” Bucky replies, brow furrowing in confusion at the sudden change of topic.

“I got piss drunk, remember?”

“Oh—right, yeah, you did!” Bucky chuckles, lips twitching at the memory.

“I wasn’t as blackout drunk as in KL, so I remember a few things from that night,” you continue. “One of the things I remember very clearly was you walkin’ me back to my room and me tryna get you in bed with me.”

Bucky remembers this event very well. You’d been tipsy, leaning heavily against him, unsteady in your black stilettos. You’d been wearing a short red dress that enhanced your legs wonderfully — he’d been unable to keep his eyes off them all night. Bucky brought you to your room and sat you on the bed, laughing softly at your drunken attempts to pull him down next to you. But, no matter how ravishing you’d looked, no matter how much his body was screaming at him to  _take you_ , he’d resisted the urge.

“And you said no,” you say quietly, drawing Bucky out of his thoughts. “You pulled off my heels, helped me take off my earrings, and then called Nat to help me get changed. I remember that.”

“My point is, I know you wouldn’t have given into me pressuring you without a fight, Bucky,” you say, “I know you’re a good man, no matter what anyone else tells you. It’s like you said — sometimes, good people make bad decisions.”

It takes Bucky a moment to process everything that you’ve just told him. His brain feels like it’s overheating, going into overdrive as it tries to sort through all the things you’re saying to him. “Wow,” he says finally. “I’m —wow, Y/N. That…yeah. Thank you.”

“I forgive you,” you say, “For what you did. S’okay if you don’t forgive me, but I do. Forgive you, that is.”

“Jesus, okay, this is intense,” Bucky mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose in his flesh hand.

Though it may be intense, at least it’s not terrible. In truth, this confrontation is panning out far better than Bucky could have ever thought possible. You’re not yelling at him, you’re not outright blaming him for the shit that’s gone wrong over the past couple of months, you’re even  _listening_ to what he has to say. Beyond that, you’re  _taking_ some, if not most, of the blame onto your own shoulders, admitting all that you’ve done wrong. It’s…it’s a lot to digest, but at least the discussion thus far has been rather positive. In retrospect, Bucky’s fears seem to be rather unwarranted.

“Alright, what else do we need to talk about?” you ask.

Bucky hums thoughtfully. “It’s…let’s talk about this baby,” he suggests.

“Ah,” you mutter, as if the thought had, up until this point, slipped your mind. “Right. Okay. Baby.”

“You’re what…four months along, now?” he asks hesitantly.

“Mmhmm,” you confirm, “I’m starting to show, y’know?

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his hands into fists, trying to reign in the thoughts running wild in his head. It’s not hard for him to imagine how beautiful you must look, tummy rounded out, yet barely showing beneath the clothes you wear.

 _Get your head in the game, Barnes_ , he thinks absentmindedly.

“How’re you feeling?” he asks, after clearing his throat to rid his voice of the hoarseness that has crept in.

“Second trimester’s so far been easier than the first,” you remark offhandedly.

“Uh…was that in English?”

You giggle. “Yeah…the…um, it’s been getting easier. I’ve got more of my energy back, these past couple of weeks. My mood swings have been less crazy, my cravings have calmed down a little. It’s been…well, not  _easy_ , but then that’s parenthood for you, right?”

Bucky nods in agreement, momentarily forgetting about the fact that you can’t see him. “Sam…came to see me. He—uh, he said that you’d told everyone that it’s Steve’s?”

“I did,” you confirm. “Wait, Sam came to see you?”

“Long story, tell you it some other time,” Bucky mutters. “Why?” he presses, “Why’d you tell everyone that the baby is Steve’s?”

“Well…because it could still be his,” you answer, your voice small and timid.

“But…you said it yourself, you’ve never had unprotected sex with him before!” Bucky cries, throwing both hands in the air. “All the evidence lines up perfectly, Y/N, you can’t deny that.”

You sigh heavily. “Bucky…it’s not that I don’t want this baby to be yours, that’s not it at all,” you explain, “I don’t  _care_  whether it’s yours or Steve’s. We can get a paternity test if you’re so desperate to find out, but to me? It makes no difference. I’m gonna love this child as much as I can, all the same.”

“I…okay,” Bucky mutters, brows pulling together in thought. “I’m….well, okay.”

“What?” you prompt, “What’re you thinking?”

“I just—why?” he asks helplessly, “Why d’you wanna have this baby so bad?”

“Because I — want to,” you say, as if it’s as simple as that. To you, perhaps it is. “It’s not that I’m particularly religious, nor am I against abortions, or anything like that, but I just—it feels  _wrong_  to not have this baby. My gut’s telling me that this is the right thing for me to do and—and I haven’t been listening to my gut enough in recent weeks.” Your voice hardens, tone becoming more resolute, “It’s telling me this loud and clear. M’not gonna make the same mistake again; I want to have this baby. There’s nothin’ I’ve ever been surer of.”

“Okay,” Bucky murmurs, his body slumping against the door, tension seeping out of his shoulders. He knows that there’s no way to sway you — not that he was ever going to try anyway. Bucky’s just relieved to learn the true intention of your pregnancy; knowing that this is not some elaborate scheme to trap him into a relationship with you gives him a peace of mind.

“Well, uh, I was wondering something,” Bucky says, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “I was um…if you’re gonna be having this kid, then I’d…I’d like to stick around, if that’s okay. To help. We don’t need to be together, like, in a relationship, or anything, but I just…wanna be around to help you.” He pauses, gulping audibly, “Even if it’s not my baby, y’know? Even if it’s Steve’s—I hurt him, I owe him so  _much_ —,” Bucky cuts himself off when his voice cracks unexpectedly.

“Bucky—,”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Bucky mutters, scrubbing the back of his hand over his eyes. “I just…it’s not  _only_ ‘cause he’s gone, but just…I owe him a lot in general, y’know? In life. He’s my best guy. And,” Bucky pauses, takes a deep, fortifying breath, “And before he died, he told me — he made me  _promise_ to keep you safe. To keep an eye on you. So—so this is me keeping that promise, alright?”

“He really said that?” you ask, voice breathless with disbelief.

“Yeah, doll,” Bucky says, lips curling into a sad smile. “He did. And besides—you shouldn’t have to do this whole parenting thing alone.”

“Shouldn’t?” you breathe, “Bucky — it’s not about should or shouldn’t, anymore. I don’t want to… _force_ you into doing anything!”

“You’re not—,”

“No, I don’t want you to feel obligated in _any_ way,” you continue, barreling over his words. “I swear, this—us being together is not my endgame, here. Please don’t do this because you feel like you have to. You can back out now, say you don’t wanna do this and I won’t hold a single bad thought against you.”

“I’m not doing this to guilt-trip you, at all,” you say sincerely, “I’m not doing this for  _anyone_ but myself. I know…this baby might have been conceived under dubious circumstances,  but whoever the father is —  _I’m_ still the mother. This is my child, no doubt about that, right? I want this baby, because  _I want this baby_. That is my one and only motive here — no hidden agenda in my pockets, Buck.”

“And besides,” you huff, the door rattling in its hinges as you lean heavily against it. “I won’t be doing it alone. I’ve got a whole squadron of superheroes to help me out.”

Bucky barks out an incredulous laugh. “You really gonna leave Stark alone with your baby?” he asks.

“…maybe not  _alone_ ,” you admit sheepishly. “But I’m serious. If you wanna stick around for the shit-show that is gonna be me tryna raise this baby, then by all means, stay. But don’t feel obliged — for my sake, or for Steve’s. I can get by on my own, Buck,” you say softly, firmly.

Bucky huffs. “The thing is, you don’t have to,” he replies. “I’m with you, Y/N. I’m gonna stick with you through all of this.”

“You said you wanna do this for yourself? I wanna do this for myself too,” Bucky says. “Whether or not I’m the father, but  _especially_  if I am — I’d like to be involved, if you’d let me.”

“Of course I’ll let you,” you assure him.

“Good—yeah, um…yeah. Just because you’re doing this  _for_ yourself, doesn’t mean you have to do it  _by_ yourself, y’know? I wanna support you, Y/N,” Bucky says, sincerity evident in his voice. “I wanna be there for  _you_ , whatever it is that you choose to do. If you wanna have this baby? Well, then—I’d best start reading those ‘what to expect when you’re expecting’ books, huh?”

“I can give you one. I’ve got a spare,” you mumble shyly. A moment of silence passes. Bucky imagines you gnawing on your bottom lip listlessly, the way you always do when you’ve got something weighing heavy on your mind. “You sure ‘bout this?” you ask, “It ain’t gonna be easy, Bucky.”

“I know,” Bucky replies, “But it’ll be worth it, right?”

“Yeah,” you murmur, voice fond. “Um…Bucky?”

“Your turn to pick a topic?” he guesses.

“No! Wait, actually, yeah — I, um. So. Where does that leave us, then?” you ask, “Are we…what are we, to each other?”

Bucky hums, pursing his lips pensively as he flips the question over in his head. “For now? Friends, I think. That could probably work,” he replies. “Maybe without the benefits,” he adds jokingly.

“Damn,” you mutter, “Seems my dildo and I are gonna get really well acquainted, then.”

“I—what?” Bucky sputters, bolting upright in shock.

You burst out into peals of laughter. “Okay, okay, I’m only joking, Bucky,” you tease, in between fits of giggles. “But no—that’s fine with me. More than fine. I think that’s what we gotta do,” you agree, “Start all over. New page in the book, and all that stuff.”

“But uh…but let’s be clear about something,” Bucky says, leaning back against the door as rakes his fingers through his hair. “I still have feelings for you. I still — love you. Don’t think it’s the same  _kind_ of love that it was a few months ago, but something’s still there.”

“Likewise,” you reply, voice soft and tender. “I still love you too, Bucky.”

He swallows nervously, viciously tamping down the overexcited butterflies in his stomach. “So…what? How does this work?”

“We just need to be careful,” you reply, “Communicate. No bottling things up anymore, or hiding things from each other ‘cause we’re tryna make the other person feel better. We gotta be honest. We gotta learn from our past mistakes.”

“Yeah,” Bucky breathes, nodding in agreement. He clears his throat, “Yeah, um. Yeah, I agree. That’s cool.”

“We gotta—if someone steps over a boundary, or something, then the other person’s gotta tell them, y’know? Like, I’m telling you right now, you wanna hold my hand? I’m down for that. But I don’t think I’m ready for you to kiss me,” you admit.

“Okay,” Bucky says, nodding more vigorously now, even though you’re not there to see it. “Yeah, cool. I can get behind that.”

“Get behind what?”

“The—all of it. Boundaries, yes to holding hands, no to kissing,” he clarifies.

“Well…not  _yet_ , at least,” you say, chuckling softly, “But that’s good. That’s…yeah, good to know.”

There’s one more thing Bucky needs to mention. He is reluctant to bring it up, though, because the thought alone is enough to tinge his vision green with jealousy, enough to make his heart clench painfully. Even so, he steels himself with a deep breath. “Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“If you—,” he breaks off, curling the fingers of his flesh hand into a fist, his nails digging in hard enough to leave welts in his palm. “If you—happen to meet someone who you like…as in, really,  _really_ like, then…m’not gonna stop you,” he says quietly, “Sure, yeah, it might hurt—I dunno, but…if you wanna date someone else, then feel free. And when the baby comes, when the baby grows up and—,” Bucky stops to swallow nervously, “Well, we don’t gotta be  _together_ together, but I’ll be there for you.”

“Oh, Bucky,” you breathe and something in your voice — the sympathy, the tenderness, he’s not sure — makes tears well up in his eyes unexpectedly. “Bucky, is this—are you—is this outta concern for me? Or outta concern for you?”

“Um…you, I think?” Bucky replies, voice low and unsure.

“Then you don’t gotta worry, Buck,” you say reassuringly, “I wanna take things slow with you, ‘cause we did everything backwards. We fucked before we even went on our first  _date_ , Bucky. I want this to work, Buck, I really,  _really_ do. I mean — yeah, if it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t but…I  _would_ like it to. I really do love you.”

“I—okay,” Bucky says, smiling to himself. An invisible weight feels as if it has been lifted off his chest. “That works for me. I want this to work too, doll.”

“Besides, no one’d want me when I look like a whale, anyway,” you mutter dryly.

“You do  _not_ look like a whale!” Bucky protests.

“Have you  _seen_ me Barnes?” you retort.

“No, I haven’t actually,” Bucky says, breath catching in his throat. “Can you—will you show me?”

“Yeah, okay,” you reply, “Gimme a sec—,”

Bucky scrambles off the floor, turning around just as you unhook the latch and pull the door open. You pop your head through the crack, flashing him a shy grin. Bucky’s heart just about melts on the spot — he’s missed your smile. He’s missed  _you_ , period.

“Hey,” he breathes, taking a hesitant step forward.

“Hey yourself,” you reply, opening the door further and beckoning him inside.

Bucky steps into the room and turns to face you as you nudge the door shut with your toe. You’re wearing an oversized flannel over a ratty white t-shirt and baggy grey joggers, topping the outfit off with bright pink fuzzy socks. Your hair looks like it hasn’t been washed for a couple of days, there are darkened circles under your eyes and not a hint of makeup on your face but — you couldn’t look more perfect, in his opinion.

Bucky’s eyes drift downward, to your mid-section. Realising where his gaze is headed, you grab the hem of your shirt and pull it up, out of the way. Your tummy is only  _just_ beginning to round out, he notes. If Bucky wasn’t acutely aware of what you looked like naked, he’d barely notice the tiny swell in your lower abdomen. He might even write it off as you making a few too many trips to the junk food cabinet.

As it stands, Bucky  _is_ in fact, very much aware of what you look like naked, so his eyes are immediately mesmerised by your little bump.

“D’you wanna touch?” you ask timidly.

“Y-yeah,” Bucky stammers, his flesh hand reaching out towards you. The tips of his fingers trail over the swell of your stomach, his touch feather-light and hesitant. Though Bucky keeps his gaze focused on his hand, he can feel your gaze focused on  _him_ , burning a hole into the top of his skull with the intensity of your stare.

“You don’t gotta be afraid,” you murmur, taking a step closer so that you can grab hold of Bucky’s wrist and press his palm flat against your stomach. For good measure, you snatch up Bucky’s metal palm — ignoring his muted sounds of protest — and bring that to your bump as well.

Bucky splays his fingers over your rounded belly, wordlessly marvelling at the miracle growing inside you. Without warning, he feels overcome with a flood of emotions; tears spring up into the corners of his eyes.

“Oh— _oh_ , Bucky,” you whisper, one hand reaching up to caress his cheek, “Hey now, it’s okay.”

“I know,” he mumbles, laughing breathlessly. “S’just…it’s been a lot today, hasn’t it?”

You hum in agreement, taking another step towards him. Bucky slowly slides his hands across your belly, over your sides and to your back. Once you’re close enough, you press your cheek to Bucky’s chest and loop your arms around his torso, crossing your wrists behind his back.

“We’re okay, right?” you ask, your voice muffled against the fabric of his t-shirt.

“Yeah,” Bucky murmurs, tucking your head under his chin protectively. “We’re okay. We’re gonna be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to share this on [tumblr!](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/168602112665/a-messed-up-place-thirteen/)


	15. FOURTEEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of precious moments throughout your pregnancy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WooOOOoooOOO! A whole century later and we’re finally back with another chapter! I’ve missed writing for this baby :’) Also – four fics in four days whut? 2018′s off to a good start ;)
> 
> As the summary suggests, this chapter is a collection of ‘moments’ throughout your pregnancy. After the trainwreck that was the last 13 chapters, I’ve decided to finally gift you with some pure fluffy goodness.

Bucky moves back into the compound that very evening. As they say: no time like the present, right? Having made amends with you, Bucky feels as if the chains that have been holding him back have finally been unshackled, like he can finally go about this relationship the way he actually  _wants_ to, the way he should have done from the very start.

He’d had to make a quick trip to the apartment in Brooklyn, just to clear out his things. He hadn’t brought a lot with him in the first place, which means that most of his worldly possessions are still safely stowed in his room in the compound — something that worked out in his favour, in the end.

Since then, he’s thrown himself into romancing you like he’s never romanced anyone before. Bucky’s also been doing a lot of reading, trying to prepare himself for parenthood as best as he can.

The rest of the team are happy to have him back at the compound, if a little puzzled by his sudden, unexplained disappearance, and equally confounding return. Natasha comes to visit him a couple of days after he moves back in. a grim set to her jaw and a purposeful gleam in her eye.

Bucky watches her with wary eyes from his spot on the bed, hands stilling in his lap. He’d been cleaning one of his rifles before she’d come in and interrupted him. He tracks her as she leans against his dresser, arms loosely folded over her chest.

“I know that you and Y/N had something going on before she got with Steve,” she tells him. Before Bucky can open his mouth to refute her claim, she holds a single finger up and barrels on. “I also know that when she  _did_ get with Steve, you were devastated. Pretty obvious with the way you were moping about the place. And it’s why you asked me to set you up, right?”

Bucky hasn’t said anything, but his silence must’ve been a good enough answer for her.

“It was to help you get over her, wasn’t it?” Natasha presses, picking up the comb he keeps on top of his dresser and twirling it between her fingers. “It was to get over her.”

“Stop,” Bucky growls, hands clenching into fists at his sides.

She smiles tiredly. “I’m not judging you, Barnes. I just—,” she breaks off, eyes downcast as she says the next two words. “The baby.”

“What about it?” Bucky asks tersely.

“Is…I don’t know whether it’s yours, or whether it’s his, but I’m guessing that it’s either Steve’s death or her pregnancy that was your trigger. One of those things, or maybe both of them, I don’t know — made you leave,” she surmises, setting the brush down and affixing him with a cool gaze.

“The two events happened so close together—I’m just not sure what set you off. But—whatever it is, I just hope you two get it sorted out.”

Bucky blinks owlishly, surprised by the sudden swerve in the conversation. “I—thanks, Natasha,” he murmurs.

She nods curtly, pushing off from his dresser and sauntering towards his door in one sinuous motion. “You’re both good people,” she says, glancing at him from over her shoulder. “Idiots, but good people.”

“Thanks,” Bucky says dryly. She blows him an exaggerated kiss as the door falls shut.

————————

“You don’t have to come,” you say nervously, for what is probably the tenth time in half as many minutes. “I’ve gone to them by myself before, it’s—,”

“Y/N,” Bucky says, cutting short your nervous babble. “I want to, okay? I really do. I wanna go with you, I wanna see the baby.”

“Okay,” you breathe, smiling nervously at him. “Okay, of course.”

It takes exactly eighteen minutes for Happy to drive you both to the hospital. Throughout the entire journey, you keep your hands folded in your lap, fidgeting anxiously with the hem of your t-shirt. Towards the end of the drive, Bucky finds himself reaching across the massive gap between you and him in the back seat, resting his hand on your knee and squeezing it reassuringly. You’re startled by the sudden gesture, but the tentative smile you flash his way tells him that you’ve appreciated it, nonetheless.

Happy pulls up in front of a sleek building which Bucky has a hard time believing is an actual hospital. It’s all shiny glass and polished steel and spotless floors, nothing like the dingy labs that HYDRA used to work in. Though the interior is sophistically decorated, the faint scent of antiseptic that seems to cling to every hospital building is present, making Bucky’s nose scrunch up in disdain. He follows you to your doctor’s office — Dr Habiba, he learns, is her name — and takes a seat in the overstuffed armchair. You, on the other hand, perch yourself on the examining table, jiggling one leg nervously.

It’s a fairly standard office, albeit devoid of those tacky health-conscious posters that normally adorn hospital walls. Even the medical equipment in there has its own aesthetic appeal, fitting in with the rest of the decor as if they were abstract art installations.

“Twenty weeks, eh?” Dr Habiba comments, once she’s got you settled on your back. You smile and nod, your expression perking up as she chats pregnancy stuff with you — most of it goes straight over Bucky’s head. Dr Habiba’s got dark skin and jet black hair that she’s pulled back into a neat chignon. By his best guess, she’s probably in her mid-forties. She seems pretty competent, moving the machinery around and speaking with the air of someone who’s been through this routine a billion times.

When it’s time to start the scan, you gesture for Bucky to stand beside you, near your head. He’s touched by the gesture, even more so when you take his flesh hand from where it’s lying beside your shoulder and interlace your fingers together.

“All healthy, looks exactly as it should be at this stage,” is the verdict you receive. You blow out a breath Bucky hadn’t realised you’d been holding, expression visibly relaxing at the words.

“You sure you don’t want to find out the sex of your baby?” Dr Habiba asks, looking to you, then Bucky, then back again. Bucky flushes. Does she think that the baby is his, or something? After he’d introduced himself, you’d told her that Bucky was a friend of yours. Perhaps the doctor is more perceptive than she appears.

Bucky squints at the mass of black and white on the monitor. The grainy image  _does_ look like a baby, he’ll give it that; he can see the shape of the head, can even make out the bump of a nose and the slope of what he thinks could be a lip. Even so, he’s got no idea how this woman, talented as she may be, can tell what sex the baby is with any kind of certainty.

“Um,” you say, sharing a look with Bucky that he can’t decipher. “I—um, well…I…Bucky? Do you wanna know?”

He’s taken aback. Surely it’s your decision, not his. Bucky licks his lips nervously. “I…uh…only if you want to,” he says hesitantly, not sure whether that’s the answer you’re wanting to hear.

“But do  _you_ want to?” you ask, more insistently this time, as if his opinion really matters to you.

“Uh…not really,” Bucky admits, free hand scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “I—think a surprise might be nice.”

Your mouth splits into a grin, eyes beaming with happiness. “Really? Great!” you exclaim.

Dr Habiba has been watching this entire exchange with an amused smile on her face, clearly discerning that there’s something more going on between you and Bucky, that you are clearly more than just ‘friends’, as you’d claimed. Whatever she thinks she does not voice aloud, however, instead just murmuring a soft ‘okay then’ as she turns back to the screen of her monitor.

“How many pictures do you want me to print out?” she asks.

“Three,” you say unhesitatingly. At Bucky’s arched eyebrow, you elaborate, “One for me, one for the fridge in the kitchen — so that no one tries to steal my picture, y’know? And one for you.”

Bucky is not ashamed to admit that he looks at that small print-out for a full five minutes before he falls asleep that night.

————————

“Oh fuck, Bucky!” you moan, head lolling forward as Bucky runs his hands all over your back.

“Yeah, doll? That feel good?” he murmurs absentmindedly. He digs his thumbs into the base of your spine, chuckling at the low groan that rumbles out of your throat.

“ _Ah_ , f-fuck, yeah,” you hiss, as his hands start to smooth down your sides, exerting just the right amount of pressure to make your body limp and pliant.

Someone snickers.

Bucky looks towards the direction of the sound and discovers that the source is Wanda, who is trying very hard to conceal her giggles behind her hand. Sam and Natasha, sitting on either side of her, are doing their best to suppress their own smiles. Bucky quirks an eyebrow up questioningly, and that seems to be the tipping point. Wanda gives in, doubling over and clutching her stomach as her shoulders shake. Her laughter set Natasha off, who buries her face into Sam’s neck.

“Wha’s so funny?” you slur out. You scoot backwards and inch the bright red exercise ball you’re bouncing on towards Bucky, so that his hands can start massaging out the tense knots in your shoulder.

“S’nothin,” Sam snorts, “You just sounds like you’re havin’ sex over there.”

“Fuck you, Wilson,” you growl, though the heat in your tone is subsequently ruined by the whimper that falls from your lips. This promptly sets off another round of giggles among your three spectators. Bucky can feel his lips fighting to pull into a smile, even as his cheeks flame up in embarrassment. It seems that you’ve decided to staunchly ignore Natasha’s wolf-whistles, instead choosing to arch into the steady press of Bucky’s fingers.

When you told him that you were feeling sore today, Bucky hadn’t hesitated to offer you a back rub. In hindsight, he probably should’ve waited for the privacy of your room, or something.

Tony and Pepper walk in at that moment. “What is this I hear about sex being had? Why am I not invited?” Tony asks loudly.

“Tony,” Pepper sighs, giving him a gentle cuff on the ear. He scowls like a little child in response.

“Bucky’s giving Y/N a massage,” Wanda wheezes, still not having fully recovered from her laughing fit, “And I think Y/N’s enjoying it a bit too much.”

“Fuck you, Wanda,” you grumble. Bucky pets your side sympathetically.

“Well, I think we should all just be happy that Y/N and Bucky have worked things out,” Pepper says, raising her voice to be heard above everyone’s laughter. “ _And_ we should all leave them in peace, hmm?” she suggests, eyes darting towards the door pointedly.

“It’s okay, Pepper, they can stay if they want to,” Bucky assures her.

It’s good knowing that the rest of the team are at ease like this. Bucky hadn’t noticed it, but him being in a sour mood for the better part of six months had really been a dampener on the atmosphere at the compound. Now, with all of the bad air cleared between you and him, it’s like a curse has been lifted; smiles are easier to come by, nowadays, and the sounds of laughter can almost always be heard.

Besides Sam, no one else on the team knows the full truth. Of course, some  _version_ of the truth had to be fed to them, that had been an inescapable fact. The condensed version of yours and Bucky’s story, is that you and Bucky started a friends-with-benefits arrangement about six months before you got with Steve, after which, the arrangement became null. Then, one drunken night of passion in KL changed everything, meaning that this baby could potentially by his — that had earned you and him a couple of disapproving looks, at the time. The two of you have assured everyone that you’ve put your differences and disagreements behind you, and that your relationship from here on out should progress a whole lot more smoothly.

Natasha’s probably managed to put together more of the puzzle, but he’s not going to begrudge her that. Natasha’s Natasha; she’ll understand, in her own roundabout way.

“How dare you insult the pregnant woman,” you grumble, tipping your neck forward to give Bucky more room. “Just fuck off and let Bucky give me my massage in peace.”

Bucky can’t help but smile a little at the hint of fondness in your tone.

————————

You’re coming out of the bathroom just as Bucky pops his head into your bedroom, having just got back from a trip to the city. You’re swathed in a fluffy polka dot bathrobe, your damp hair hanging limply around your face. Bucky holds up the small canvas bag he’s holding in his right hand and waggles his eyebrows triumphantly.

“What’s that?” you ask, waddling over to your bed and sinking down on it with a grateful sigh. Being five and a half months pregnant is starting to take its toll on you.

Instead of answering verbally, Bucky comes bounding up beside you, thrusting the bag into your hands. Nervous excitement is radiating out of his every pore. He feels a little like a wolf that’s gone hunting for its mate — not that you’re his mate, or anything — and is now presenting his treasures for inspection.

Your lips pull into a frown, which quickly turns into a giddy smile when you peer into the bag. Inside is a collection of fruits that Bucky bought from the farmer’s market earlier this morning — strawberries, blueberries, a small melon, even a couple of mangoes.

“Bucky, what…?” your voice trails off as you turn to look up at him, eyes sparkling with wonderment.

Bucky shifts his weight from foot to foot and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Well, uh…I’ve noticed that you’ve been craving a lot of fruits, lately, especially the sweet kind, so I—I went out and bought you some.”

He doesn’t know what he was expecting, exactly, but he’s certainly taken by surprise when you surge forward and throw your arms around his neck, pulling him in for a fierce hug. “Thank you,” you whisper sincerely. Bucky wraps his arms around your torso and gives you a gentle squeeze, not wanting to jostle anything he shouldn’t be jostling. He’s enjoying the way his heart swells with pride at having made you this happy.

“Oh, there’s also this,” Bucky says, when you finally step away. He shrugs his backpack off his shoulders and plonks it on the bed, pulling open the zip and rummaging around inside. With a soft hum of victory, he pulls out a tub of cookies and cream ice cream and waves it in your direction.

“You got me ice cream?” you gasp, eyes going comically wide.

“Well, last week you said you really wanted some,” Bucky said, handing it over to you. There’s a brief moment where his fingers brush yours as you take the tub from his hands — maybe it’s his imagination, but he swears that sparks fly at that point of contact.

“You remembered that?” you ask softly, gazing down at the tub of ice cream like it’s a whole lot more symbolic than simply, a tub of ice cream.

Bucky snorts, crossing his arms over his chest. “You were keeping me awake all night talking about it!” he reminds you, aiming for nonchalance, but tone coming out far too tender for him to do it effectively. Besides, he’s pretty sure he’s got some goofy grin on his face that ruins the effect anyhow.

You shyly catch his gaze through your lashes. “I was not,” you mutter, “But thank you. I love you.”

Bucky’s breath hitches in his throat, just as your free hand flies up to clamp over your mouth. Your eyes nearly bulge out of your head once the words you’ve just said finally register with your brain.

“Y/N—,”

“I’m sorry!” you blurt out, “I—I mean, I  _do_ , but—,”

“Romantically?” Bucky interrupts, “Or as a friend?”

Your jaw snaps shut, eyes travelling to the floor by your feet, not wanting to meet his stare. “Um…would you kill me if I said both?” you ask timidly.

“No,” Bucky replies. “I bought these things for you because I feel both, as well.”

“Oh, good,” you say, before tossing the ice cream onto the bed and pulling Bucky in for another enthusiastic hug.

————————

Bucky’s just finished relieving himself and is busy washing his hands at the sink when he hears your scream.

“Bucky!” you shout, “Get in here, now!”

A million and one thoughts surge through his system, a sense of panic being the strongest of them all. He bursts through the door — probably ripping it off of its hinges in the process — and sprints towards you. You’re sat on the armchair in the corner of his bedroom, bottom lip caught between your teeth and hands cradling your bump.

“Y/N?” Bucky asks breathlessly, fighting to keep his cool in the face of all the emotions threatening to cloud his rational mind. Bucky collapses to his knees in front of you, reaching up to cup your face. “What’s wrong? Is it the baby? Are you hurt? Are you—”

He shuts up when you grab his flesh hand and place it on top of your belly. His confusion deepens momentarily, until he feels a barely-there fluttering sensation against his palm. Understanding clicks into place.

“Are those—,”

“The baby!” you cry happily, your hand coming to rest on top of his. “You feel it?”

Bucky has to swallows around the lump in his throat before he speaks. “Yeah,” he says hoarsely, “I feel it, alright.”

He flattens out his hand, pressing as much of his palm onto your stomach as he possibly can to maximise the amount of movement he can feel. There’s no pattern to the motion. He’ll feel a quick burst of fluttering, before the baby quietens down again. Some movements are harder and sharper than the others, but all make him smile equally wide. There may or may not be tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. He makes no move to brush them away.

“I started feeling movement a few weeks ago, but you never when you were around, for some reason,” you say softly, the fingers of your other hand threading through his hair, nails scratching gently against his skull. He has a sudden urge to butt into the touch, nuzzle his head into your palm like a cat.

Bucky’s not embarrassed to admit that the two of you spend the rest of the afternoon watching a movie from your couch, your hands intertwined on top of your stomach. He can think of worse ways to spend his day.

————————

Bucky is lying on his bed, back propped up by a couple of pillows, feet crossed at the ankles and a parenting book held in his left hand. He looks up when you breeze in through his open door, a small white box in your hand.

He resolutely tries to not think about the last time you waltzed into his room holding a box. The past is the past, and your relationship has come far since that day.

“I bought my first something for the baby!” you announce, beaming happily at Bucky as you climb onto the bed.

“Oh really?” Bucky asks, putting his bookmark back into place, before setting the book on his bedside table and pushing himself upright. He crosses his legs Indian-style and rests his elbows on his knees, all whilst trying to tame the exhilarated thumping of his heart. “What is it? Lemme see.”

You twist around so that you’re sitting on the bed properly, mirroring Bucky’s pose. You set the box down between the two of you. It’s square-shaped and pristine white, probably a little larger than Bucky’s hand. The name of the company is embossed on the front in a neat gold font. You open the lid and set it aside, then reach into the box and pull out the — wait, is that a piece of fabric?

“It’s a blanket,” you explain, holding the item in question up and shaking it brusquely, so that it opens up completely. Bucky reaches out and touches it, rubbing the material between the thumb and forefinger of his flesh hand. He fights not to gasp aloud; the blanket is the softest thing to have ever touched his skin.

You pass it to him and Bucky drapes it over his lap, running his fingers over the material to marvel at its  _unbelievable_ softness — Jesus Christ, he can’t wrap his head around how silky this thing feels. It’s a pale brown colour, a cross between beige and warm chestnut. There’s a small teddy-bear embroidered on one corner. It’s square-shaped and pretty large too, probably about half a metre in length and width.

“I wanna go baby shopping with you,” Bucky says suddenly, the words coming out of his mouth before his brain can even parse them through.

“Okay,” you say, as if that settles everything. It’s probably not as big a deal as Bucky’s making it out to be in his head, but his excitement levels have definitely kicked up a notch at the prospect of being able to go baby shopping with you. With great reluctance, he hands the blanket back over to you, observing as you carefully fold it into a neat square and place it back into its box.

“I need to properly start buying clothes and things,” you sigh, “ _Ugh_ , I need a changing table, and a crib, and a stroller, and—,”

“Hey,” Bucky interrupts, laying a hand on your knee, “Don’t stress yourself out. I’m here to help, right?”

The corner of your lips quirk up into a half-smile, just as one of your hands come to rest on top of his, your thumb stroking over his knuckles. “Yeah. I’m glad,” you murmur. “What’re you reading?” you ask, jerking your chin over to the book he’d set down.

“Oh, uh…” Bucky flushes, running a hand through his hair in embarrassment. “Just a parenting book,” he replies. There’s a pause, then, “I don’t know if I’m cut out for this, Y/N,” he says quietly.

Your thumb pauses its back and forth motion. “You…want to stop? To back out?” you ask carefully.

“No!” Bucky cries hurriedly, quick to reassure you that that is not what he means  _at all_. “No, no, I didn’t mean it like that, I just…I think I’m gonna do more harm than good, is all,” he sighs. “I’ve never fed a baby, or put one to bed, or given one a bath, or—,”

“Hey, neither have I,” you point out, “I’m gonna be just as clueless as you are.”

“But—,”

“We’ll just have to learn together, yeah?”

And there’s just something so earnest in your gaze that Bucky finds himself not caring about his inexperience anymore. Who cares if he fucks things up? It’s all a learning curve, right? Even so, he can’t quite shake off all his worries. “And—there’s something else,” Bucky says, “It’s not just that.”

“No?”

“No,” he admits, shaking his head slowly as he gathers up the courage to say what he’s been meaning to say for a while. “I—don’t know if  _this_ ,” he says, waving his metal arm around, “Was made for handling babies.”

He forces his gaze to meet your eyes, even though all he wants to do is curl up into a ball in the corner and wallow in his self-pity. Bucky watches as your eyes soften, your mouth falling open into a soft ‘o’.

Moving carefully, as if you don’t want to spook him, you reach forward and take hold of the wrist of his metal hand, bringing it into your lap. You wrap both of your hands around it, enclosing it in your grasp. Your gaze flick towards Bucky to ensure that he has his eyes on you, before you bring that hand up to your lips and slowly,  _deliberately_ , brush the tenderest kiss over each knuckle. Then, you stretch each finger out and press your lips to each fingertip. There’s a sense of reverence to your actions, adoration and—and  _acceptance_ so clearly discernible in your gaze. The gears and plates in his arm whirr and click, responding to the nervous energy flickering through him. Bucky wants to snatch his hand away from you, but it is as if you have him frozen in place.

His breath hitches as you use one finger to trace the grooves on the back of his hand, your expression unreadable as you cock your head to the side. “I have faith in you,” you say quietly. “Once upon a time, you didn’t think that this hand could touch my lady bits, either, remember?”

“Y/N,” Bucky says exasperatedly, pushing aside the scandalous images that pop into his head.

“And lemme tell you,” you whisper breathily, leaning in closer so that your face is just inches away from his own. “I’ve had some of the best orgasms of my life, thanks to these fingers.”

Bucky feels as if you’ve stolen the breath from his lungs. He clears his throat and tries to remember how to get his mouth working again. “M-metal arm kink,” he jokes, but his voice is too husky for it to come off as playful as he wants it to.

You shake your head. “No! Well, actually—maybe, but that’s not the point,” you say, rolling your eyes at Bucky’s self-satisfied smirk. “My  _point_ is that you’ve got more control over this arm than you give yourself credit for,” you tell him, giving the hand an extra-tight squeeze, for emphasis. “I mean, I’m sure you can get Tony to amp up the sensors in it, if you really wanted to, but—whatever the case,  _I_ know that you won’t hurt the baby, and that’s good enough for me.”

If Bucky were to ask himself what possessed him to reach up and cup your jaw, at this point, he wouldn’t have been able to answer his own question. He feels as if his body is on autopilot, flesh hand holding the back of your neck as he leans forward. He’s thrilled to see that you’re closing your eyes, your own head tipping upwards and slightly to the left.

The first press of his lips against yours is perfect — everything he remembered it to be from that night in KL, yet so much better, untainted by bitter thoughts of self-hatred. You hum softly in the back of your throat as Bucky deepens the kiss, tongue licking lightly at the seam of your lips.  _God_ , but he’s wanted this for as long as he’s known you. All the parts of him are singing in ecstasy, overjoyed to finally be able to indulge in this experience with you.

The two of you pull away before anything can get too heated. Bucky does so remorsefully, but he knows it’s for the best, in the long run.

You sit back, a dazed look in your eyes. Bucky swallows, cards his hands through his hair. He doesn’t know how you’ll react to that. “Um…that was—,”

“Perfect,” you finish, smiling happily at him.

Bucky breathes an internal sigh of relief. “I—yeah. That’s…yeah. Wanna watch a movie or something?”

————————

The two of you are in your room, snuggled up under the covers as a random movie plays on the TV. You’ve got the volume turned down low, however, because neither of you are  _really_ watching it. You’re just using it as an excuse to have a lazy evening together.

You’re pressed up against Bucky’s side and his fingers are idly drawing loopy patterns on your tummy. With you at almost seven months pregnant, your belly has rounded out considerably. One of Bucky’s favourite past times is running his hands all over it.

“C’mon, I’m being serious here, any name suggestions?” you ask, prodding him on the shoulder. “This baby ain’t gonna name itself, y’know?”

“What boy names are you thinking of?” Bucky asks.

“I was thinking maybe Steve, or Steven as a middle name,” you admit.

Bucky snorts. “We should spell it S-T-E-P-H-E-N,” he jokes.

You scrunch up your noise in disgust. “Ew, no, that’s an atrocity. I—fuck no, that’s too weird.”

Bucky laughs, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of your head. A hint of possessive pride flares in his chest at the way you burrow even closer to him. “Being serious though,” Bucky continues, “I like that idea. Using Steve’s name, I mean. Spelt the proper way.”

You hum, brows knitted together in thought. It’s apparent that you haven’t heard a word he’s just said. “Or…how about Roger? As a middle name, I mean?” you suggest.

“Oh, that’s nice too,” Bucky says. “But why’re you thinking of middle names first? Shouldn’t first names come first?”

“I know,” you sigh, scrubbing a hand over your eyes. “They’re just harder to think of.”

“What ideas d’you got?”

“I like Carter,” you tell him, “William. Nicholas. Theodore—,”

“Theodore’s good,” Bucky interjects.

“Yeah? Theodore Roger?”

“Yeah, and the baby’ll have your last name, right?” Bucky asks.

You turn your face to look at him properly, confusion evident in your expression. “Oh? Are you sure?”

“Well, we don’t exactly know whether this baby is mine or Steve’s, right?” Bucky points out, shrugging one shoulder indifferently. “I mean, well—it’s all up to you at the end of the day, I guess, I’m okay with anything.”

Bucky watches as you nibble on your bottom lip, mulling over what he’s just said. “Yeah, I—y’know, let’s just cross that bridge when we get there, ‘kay?”

“Sure thing, doll,” Bucky agrees, squeezing your hand reassuringly. He watches as you yawn widely, covering your mouth with your hand, a sheepish look in your eyes. Bucky then notes the time on the clock on your bedside table; it’s almost 11PM at night.

“I’ll just head into my—,”

“No!” you cry, hand darting out to catch his wrist as Bucky moves to roll away from you. Bucky stills, heart racing so fast he can feel it in his throat. “I—I mean,” you add hastily, “I would really like it if you could stay, but if you wanna go back, I understand.”

It takes Bucky two tries to get his answer out. “Okay, doll, I’ll stay,” he says softly, reaching out to stroke your hair out of your face. He asks FRIDAY to switch off the movie as he rearranges the pillows around you, propping one underneath your head, before pulling the covers up and over the both of you. He reaches over to switch off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness. You pull him down by the sleeve of his shirt, rolling onto your left side so that Bucky can spoon you.

His mind is whirling. This is the first time he’s actually  _sleeping_ with you — that night in KL doesn’t count — and his heart doesn’t know what to do with itself. He hopes that you can’t feel or hear the mad thumping of his pulse. Bucky allows his body to do what feels natural, curling protectively around your back, his arm resting around your burgeoning waist, his nose tucking into the space behind your neck. Your hand rests on top of his, fingers intertwining with his flesh ones.

“I love you,” he murmurs, lips brushing against your skin.

“Love you too,” you whisper.

————————

“Oh my god, Y/N!” Bucky gasps.

“What?” you ask, turning around to look at him.

“Look at these!” Bucky cries excitedly, holding the tiny booties up for you to see. They’re a lovely blue colour, with white stripes on the soles. “They’re so tiny!”

“I know!”

“They’re so cute!”

You place your hands on your hips and narrow your eyes at Bucky in suspicion. “Barnes, do you need a moment? Need to step outside?” you tease, “I’m gonna need you to calm down.”

“But they’re so cute!” Bucky whines, as he brings them over to you for closer inspection. He drops them into your hands and watches the small smile that crosses your lips as you rub the material between your fingers.

“It’s times like these that I wish I knew what I was having,” you groan, looking miserably around the shop.

“You’re having a human child, I hope,” Bucky deadpans.

You snort, smacking him across the chest with the back of your hand. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it!”

Bucky grunts in agreement; for as progressive as this century may be, all the baby clothes in this shop seem to be in various shades of either pink or blue. “Everything’s either really girly, or really boyish,” you grumble, as you continue walking between the racks of clothes. “I mean, yeah, if I had a boy, I could put him in pink things, and vice versa, but…yeah.”

“Oh look!” Bucky cries, as the pair of you round the corner and enter a different part of the shop. Specifically, the part of the shop that houses distinctly  _less_ gendered clothing; the unisex section. Everything here is in calming shades of white, beige, yellow and green. Bucky wanders down the aisles, dropping the items of clothing that catch his fancy into his basket as he passes them by.

“Buck? Come take a look at these,” you call.

Bucky hurries over to you and barks out a sharp laugh at the display you’re looking at. “Avengers merch? For real?” he asks.

“Bucky, we  _need_ to get this stuff,” you say seriously, moving to put a set of Black Widow-themed bibs into your basket.

“Wait, no!” Bucky says, catching your wrist to stop you.

“What? Why not?”

“Because I’m pretty sure the rest of the team are going to get us this kinda stuff for our baby shower,” Bucky explains. You frown, but shrug a shoulder in agreement, dropping the subject in favour of exploring the rest of the shop.

Bucky’s noticed that he’s started referring to the two of you as ‘us’ more and more frequently, in recent days. It’s not something that he consciously chose to do — it’s more a habit that he picked up and found he couldn’t stop. If you notice, you don’t correct him and for that, he’s secretly pleased.

————————

“Never again!” you groan, throwing an arm over your eyes dramatically. Bucky chuckles as he continues digging his thumbs into the soles of your feet. Apparently, three hours of non-stop shopping takes a lot out of a heavily pregnant lady.

“Never again,” Bucky agrees.

“How ‘bout Samantha?” you suggest, continuing the discussion you’d been having in the car. You lift your arm away from your eyes at Bucky’s indignant scoff.

“Who’s nickname would be Sam? Do you  _want_ Wilson’s head to get any bigger?” Bucky asks, “If it gets any bigger, he won’t be able to fit it through the door.”

“Okay, okay, point taken,” you laugh. “What about…ooh! What about Stephanie? Or Steffi, as a play on Steve?”

“Oh, I like Steffi, actually,” Bucky agrees, using a thumb to dig into a particularly sore section of your foot, if your sharp intake of breath is anything to go by.

“Middle name?” you prompt. “Oh, what about after your ma? Or one of your sisters?”

Bucky’s fingers falter at your suggestion. It means a lot to him, honestly. “Um…Steffi Rebecca doesn’t sound that nice, and neither does Steffi Winifred,” he muses. “My second youngest sister was Elizabeth—,”

“Steffi Elizabeth?” you try, “Mmm…Steffi Beth? No, don’t think so.”

“And my youngest sister was Ann,” Bucky finishes.

“Steffi Ann,” you murmur, lips pulling into a small smile. “I like it. I really like it, actually.”

“Me too,” Bucky says quietly, “Almost as much as I like you.”

“Like?” you echo, waggling your eyebrows suggestively.

Bucky rolls his eyes but takes the bait. “Okay, more like love,” he admits, as he leans forward to plant a soft kiss on your lips.

“Love you too,” you breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Share this on [tumblr!](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/169307208730/a-messed-up-place-fourteen)


	16. FIFTEEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You welcome a bundle of joy into this world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I CANNOT DESCRIBE TO YOU THE FEELS IN MY HEART. THERE ARE NO WORDS.
> 
> Ugh. My heart is full of joy, after writing this chapter. The epilogue’ll probably take a while to come out, but I promise you, I’m gonna get there one day. This chapter is, really long. 7.5K words. Whoops. 
> 
> Side note — I’ve never given birth before, so apologies if this is not medically accurate (feel free to correct me, if that’s the case!). I did, however, watch a lot of ‘labour story’ videos on YouTube, haha.
> 
> Warnings for all the blood and gore that comes with giving birth.

Bucky flips up the collar of his coat and tugs his woollen hat further down his head, so that it covers the tips of his ears. He’s not as cold as he could be — the super-serum is good for something, at least — but he still feels a chill settling into his bones. New York winters have always had a sharp bite to them, but this year, he feels as if the Arctic has decided to migrate south, bringing gusts of icy winds along with it.

He tucks the hot pink box of doughnuts into the crook of his left arm and hurries down the street, threading his way through the crowd of people. Although he’d been loathe to leave you behind at the compound when you’re  _this close_ to your due date, Bucky’s never been able to say no to you — you’d asked him to get you some doughnuts from that corner shop you love and he’d gotten into his car to buy you a whole box of them, not ten minutes later.

Out of the corner of his eye, a flickering of light catches his attention. His pace falters as he passes by  _Browning & Co_, a jewellery store whose shop window displays an impressive array of rings, bracelets and necklaces. The sunlight catches on the diamonds and precious stones embedded in some of them.

His gaze lingers on a few of the rings.

Bucky’s been thinking about marriage quite a lot, recently. It’s probably because the baby’s due date has been drawing ever closer. It’s something that’s come up in your conversations, but not a topic that the two of you have discussed extensively. The shop seems to be calling to him, luring him inside — there’s tugging behind his gut that’s compelling him to walk in. As if his body is running on autopilot, Bucky finds his feet carrying him towards the front entrance. Against his better judgement, he finds himself shouldering the door open and stepping inside.

It’s a well-lit place with a cosy vibe. The air smells of cinnamon and ginger, due to the reed diffuser Bucky spies in the back corner. On the right hand side of the shop, there is a row of display cases filled with an assortment of jewellery. The case furthest away from him holds a large collection of rings. The left hand side of the shop consists of shelves filled with decorative trinkets and small ornaments. There are a few more display tables along the back wall and in the far left corner is the payment counter; behind that, there’s a door which Bucky assumes leads to the back office.

That door opens just as Bucky’s eyes fall on it. A petite woman in her mid-thirties steps out to greet him.

“Hi,” she says, a bright smile on her face. She steps around the corner and walks over to Bucky. “Welcome to Browning & Co. I’m Mariana. How may I help you?”

“I—uh,” Bucky pauses, his tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip. “I’m looking for a ring,” he tells her, his gaze drifting over to the display case once more.

“A ring?” Mariana repeats, nodding thoughtfully. “Is there any particular occasion for this ring, Mr…?”

“Barnes,” Bucky supplies. “And—uh, I just…wanted to get one. In case. Y’know. We—I might propose to her.”

Mariana nods in understanding, not put off by Bucky’s anxiety. “Why don’t you take a look at them, Mr Barnes?” she suggests, gesturing to the rings behind her, “Please, take a seat, let me just get the key.”

“Sure,” Bucky mumbles, following her suggestion and sinking down onto the stool in front of the display case. He taps his flesh fingers on the glass as Mariana goes around the back of the case to unlock it.

“Did you have any particular design features in mind?” she asks.

Bucky shakes his head dumbly, too focused on the  _range_ of rings there are to choose from, to answer her verbally. It’s overwhelming. There are gold ones, silver ones, flashy ones, simple ones. Each one is beautiful in its own right — feminine, delicate, and evidently made by the hands of a skilled craftsman.

“She doesn’t wear jewellery a lot,” Bucky admits. “She does have a few silver items, though.”

Mariana is very helpful. She patiently answers all of Bucky’s stumbling questions and helps him wade through the choices he needs to make. After approximately half an hour of deliberation, Bucky finally settles on one: it’s a simple silver ring consisting of two bands twisted together, with a bright blue sapphire embedded in the centre.

It’s perfect. The moment Bucky sets his eyes on it, he knows that it’s the one he wants to get you. He can clearly envision it on your finger, can picture the way the blue would stand out against your skin.

Bucky bids a cheerful goodbye to Mariana as he steps out of the store, a small black pouch safely nestled into the pocket of his coat. There’s a bubbling sense of excitement in his gut, a slight spring in his step as he braves the cold once more.

Bucky knows that it’s still too early on in your relationship to propose to you. Although he  _knows_ deep down that you’re the one he wants to spend the rest of his life with, he still needs to make sure that the two of you are on the same page. Besides — Bucky’s not going to propose to you when the baby is so close to being here.

Nonetheless. He wants to be prepared. Bucky knows that the wounds from your engagement to Steve are still healing and is thus unwilling to pressure you into something you’re not mentally prepared for, but even so. In his heart of hearts, he just  _knows._

Bucky is jolted out of his daydreams when his phone starts vibrating in the pocket of his jeans. He fishes it out and glances at the screen. His heart does a somersault in his throat when he sees the caller ID. Bucky thumbs the ‘accept’ button and presses the phone to his ear.

“Y/N?” he says, fighting to keep his voice steady. “What’s up, sweetheart?”

“Hey, Bucky,” you say. “You might wanna get back to the compound as soon as you can.”

“What?” Bucky breathes, heart beginning to pound against his ribs. He quickens his pace to a brisk trot, pushing through the crowds of people to get to his car.  Mentally, he curses himself for having spent so long staring at some stupid jewellery. “Are you okay? Darling, is it—,”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” you assure him hastily, “My, um—my waters broke.”

“The baby’s coming?” Bucky squeaks. He’s brutally tamping down on the panic trying to claw its way up his throat, but some of it bleeds into his voice in spite of his best efforts. “Y/N, are you sure you’re—,”

“Really, Bucky, I’m fine,” you repeat. “I called you as soon as it happened — the water’s still coming out of me, actually,” you giggle, “S’kinda weird. Feels like I’m peeing myself, but I’m not.”

“But you’re not in pain?” Bucky presses, tucking his phone between his ear and his shoulder as he fishes his heys out of his back pocket. A man in a suit nearly bowls him over and Bucky makes sure to give him the most murderous glare he can muster up. Suit-man backs away hurriedly.

“No, no contractions or anything like that,” you say, “I promise I’m fine, just come back soon, okay?”

“Getting in my car right now,” Bucky says. “See you soon, Y/N.”

“See you,” you murmur, “Love you.”

Bucky’s lips twitch up into a small, tender smile. “Love you too.”

He ends the call, slips behind the steering wheel and dumps the box of doughnuts and his phone into the seat beside him. The engine purrs to life once he twists the key in the ignition. Bucky flips up the armrest and taps a few of the buttons.

“FRIDAY?” he calls.

“Right here, Sarge.”

“Can you clear the road for me?” Bucky asks, as he puts the car into reverse and backs it out of his parking spot. “The traffic lights—,”

“Will all be green when you hit them,” FRIDAY assures him. “I’ll do my best to redirect the traffic as well. Follow the highlighted route on the screen.”

“You’re the best, FRI,” Bucky mutters, as he gets the car into gear and floors the gas pedal.

 _Maybe_  he exceeds the speed limit by a factor of two once he hits the highway, but that’s something that only he and FRIDAY need to know about. His baby is about to be born into this world and Bucky is damn well not going to miss a second of it.

Once he gets to the compound, Bucky abandons the car in driveway and sprints inside. FRIDAY helpfully informs him that you’re in the common room. His heart is racing against his ribs, a maddening  _thump-thump-thump_  that matches the roar in his ears. He rounds the corner to the common room and breathes an internal sigh of relief once he sees you.

You’re sitting on your red exercise ball, chin resting against your chest and eyes squeezed shut. Wanda is kneeling behind you, rubbing soothing circles against your lower back. Natasha is sat on the couch, phone in hand, and Sam is agitatedly pacing the floor in front of you. You’re dressed in a pair of loose black shorts and a baggy t-shirt.

You lift your head up at that moment, lips pursed as you exhale slowly. “Okay, I think it’s over,” you sigh.

“38 seconds,” Natasha announces, “And 8 minutes after the last one.”

You groan heavily, rolling your shoulders back as you twist your head to the side. Your expression visibly lightens when you see Bucky standing in the entrance to the room.

“You’re back!” you say happily, grinning wide as you push yourself off your exercise ball.

“I’m sorry I was out for so long, doll,” Bucky apologises, rushing forward and pulling you into a hug, burying his nose into the crook of your neck. “I knew I shouldn’t have—,”

“Bucky, I’m  _fine_ , I really am,” you say, leaning back and patting his cheek. “You didn’t miss much, anyway. I’ve had four contractions so far and they’ve all been pretty manageable.”

Bucky sighs heavily, raking his fingers through his hair. “It’s okay, Buck,” you murmur, encircling his wrist with your fingers. “You’re here now, that’s what matters.”

He gives you a wry smile, before nodding in agreement and shrugging off his coat, which he drapes over the back of the couch. “Sam, could you stash these in Y/N’s room?” Bucky asks, holding the box of doughnuts out to Sam.

“Whoah, hey, no!” you protest, yanking the box out of his grip, “They’re  _my_ doughnuts. I want them  _now_.”

“Should you really be eating at this point, Y/N?” Wanda asks concernedly.

You scoff as you deftly untie the ribbon around the box. “Wan, this part of the labour process is s’posed to be the longest. We’re talking a few hours, at least. I’m supposed to be eating and drinking as much as I can at this point.”

“You’ve called your midwife?” Bucky asks.

“I’ve called her, and I’ve called my doctor, as well,” you reply, groaning under your breath as you settle into the couch. Bucky’s got one hand under your arm to help support your weight. You pat the spot next to you, smiling hopefully up at him. He gets the message, sitting down on your right side and lifting his arm up so that you can curl up next to him like a cat.

“When’re they coming over?” Sam asks “Your midwife and the nurse?” He’s hovering dangerously close to you, looking longingly at your box of doughnuts. You narrow your eyes at him in suspicion, hugging your sweet treats closer to your chest. Bucky chuckles.

“I’m supposed to call them again once my contractions are five minutes apart and lasting about 40 to 50 seconds,” you reply, picking out one of the chocolate-covered doughnuts and taking an obnoxiously large bite out of it, right in front of Sam’s face. Bucky snorts at Sam’s wounded expression.

“Fuckin’ disrespectful,” Sam grumbles, shaking his head at the two of you. “I get you two together, and  _this_ is how you repay me?”

“Deal with it, Wilson,” you retort, taking another bite out of your doughnut for emphasis.

Bucky rubs circles into the top of your arm. “You sure you still wanna do a home birth? S’not too late to go to the hospital, if you changed your mind.”

“I know,” you reply, leaning your head against Bucky’s shoulder. “But I do, I want to have it here. Besides, if anything goes wrong, we’ve got a pretty good med bay at the compound, no?”

“Fair point,” Bucky concedes, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of your head. “Anything you need? Anything I can get you?”

You shake your head, polishing off the last of your doughnut before setting the box down beside you, so that you can throw your arm over Bucky’s torso. “Jus’ need you,” you say softly, your voice low enough that only Bucky can hear what you’ve said.

His heart melts a little at your words.

“M’right here, sweetheart,” he says, stroking his hand down the centre of your back. “I’ll be here for as long as you need me to be.” You hum contentedly, nuzzling your face into the fabric of Bucky’s t-shirt.

The two of you stay like that for a few minutes more before you wriggle free from Bucky’s arm to sit up straight. “Contraction,” you gasp, mouth contorting into a grimace as your eyes screw shut.

“Hit the timer, Nat!” Wanda says excitedly.

“I’ve hit it already, genius,” Natasha mutters.

Bucky slips down to the floor and kneels in front of you, thumbs rubbing small circles into the soft skin of your inner elbow. He presses his forehead to yours and murmurs soothing nonsense under his breath as you breathe deeply and grit your teeth against the pain. When it’s over, you slump back, throwing your arm over your eyes as you take a shuddering breath.

“ _That_ one was 40 seconds, and only 7 minutes after the last one,” Nat announces.

“That one was more painful,” you say weakly. Bucky clucks his tongue in sympathy, sliding his hands down your thighs and calves in an attempt to ground you.

“You cold, sweetheart?” Bucky asks quietly, noting the slight chill to your skin. “Should I tell FRIDAY to turn up the heating?”

“Yes please,” you reply tiredly, “And someone get me some water, while we’re at it?”

“I’ll get it,” Sam offers, already getting out of his chair and heading towards the kitchen.

It’s essentially more of the same for the next four hours, or so. Bucky is by your side through every second, rubbing your back, your belly, your wrists — any part of you that is most convenient, really — as you screw your eyes shut and take deep breaths to battle your way through the pain of each contraction. Sam, Nat and Wanda aren’t there for the entire time, but there’s always someone else in the room with you two, ready to lend an extra pair of hands.

Bucky’s read about this in his parenting books extensively, and tries to be as supportive and calm as he can be. He’s perpetually holding a bottle of water to your lips, trying to coax you into drinking some. You power your way through another doughnut, as well as a few slices of apple, some grapes, and a few other snacks. With the weight of the baby hanging heavy between your hips and your body seizing up because of a contraction every few minutes, it’s hard for you to find a comfortable position. You alternate between bouncing on your exercise ball, getting on all fours on on the floor, and sitting with your back to Bucky’s chest, your legs cradled between his own.

Bucky likes that position best because it means that he can run his hands all over your belly and marvel at the fact that there is an actual,  _live_ , baby on the way.

Possibly  _his_ baby.

“Today’s the day we find out,” he murmurs softly, in a moment of respite between two contractions.

“Huh?” you say dumbly, your brain still disoriented from the residual pain.

“We find out if the baby is mine or not today,” Bucky says, pressing a small kiss to the back of your neck. Your body tenses in his arms. Bucky hums, smoothing his hand down your sides and over the top of your swollen belly to soothe you.

“I’m happy, either way this turns out,” Bucky continues, keeping his voice low so that Wanda, sitting in the armchair with her gaze trained on the TV, won’t overhear your conversation. “I’m gonna love this baby with all my heart, either way. If the baby is Steve’s, or mine — I don’t care, doll. I really don’t. I just want you and the baby to be healthy and happy, that’s all I want.”

You twist around in his arms. Your eyes are misty, a watery smile on your lips. “I love you, d’you know that?” you whisper, leaning forward to press an impassioned kiss to his lips. Bucky chuckles happily, his flesh hand coming up to cup your jaw.

“Love you too, doll.”

Bruce pops his head into the common room every hour or so to show his support. He apologises for not being able to stay for longer, but his time’s being taken up by some pressing experiments that he’s got going on in the lab. Clint shows up after about three hours and Tony and Pepper get back from a day of meetings at the tower sometime around the four hour mark.

Incidentally, that happens to be the time that your contractions decide to ramp up to a whole new level.

“Okay, that’s the third one that’s lasted for over fifty seconds,” Sam says, brows knitting together as he studies the screen, “And they’re all consistently five minutes apart, now.”

“Time to call the doctor?” Nat asks.

“Time to call the doctor,” you agree, with a limp nod of your head. You and Bucky are standing in the middle of the room. Well. Bucky’s standing — you’re just leaning heavily against him with your head resting on his shoulder. He’s swaying you from side to side, hands cradling and supporting your bump from below. You’ve decided that this is the most comfortable position to be in, right now.

The next hour passes by surprisingly fast. The compound is a hive of activity as everyone jumps into action. Your contractions have definitely fallen into a steady rhythm — which, according to the books, is a sure sign that the big event is rapidly approaching. Natasha makes the call to your midwife whilst Sam, Clint and Pepper head into the spare room to set up your birthing pool. Tony scurries off to the labs to check up on Bruce,  leaving behind strict orders to be summoned when the birthing ordeal is over — Bucky suspects that he’s more freaked out by the blood that he’s willing to admit. Wanda stays with you and Bucky in the living room, monitoring your contractions and helping Bucky sponge you down with a damp towel.

“I just want this baby  _out_ ,” you whine, pressing your forehead against your crossed wrists. You’re currently kneeling in front of the couch, forearms resting on top of the cushions. Bucky is sitting beside you, towelling off the back of your sweaty neck with one hand, running his fingers through your hair with the other.

“Soon, doll, soon,” Bucky says quietly, pressing an encouraging kiss to your temple. “You’re doin’ so good, y’know that? Being so strong and brave.”

“Is the pool ready yet?” you ask petulantly, pressing your cheek into the couch so that you can look Bucky in the eye. “I really wanna get in it.”

“You gotta wait for your midwife first, remember?” Wanda reminds you, petting the top of your head sympathetically when you groan.

“But it  _is_ ready,” Bucky assures you, “Sam and Pepper have it set up, and Clint’s just getting the towels and stuff for the table. You can get into it as soon as you’ve been checked.”

You let out a low hiss of pain as another contraction draws you into its clutches. Bucky shuffles closer and gently massages your lower back. He hushes you as you whimper through the pain, whispering words of encouragement into your ear. “I got you, baby, I got you,” Bucky murmurs, “M’right here, I got you. You’re doin’ so good, you know that?”

The midwife — a lovely woman by the name of Susie who has the fierceness of Natasha and the gentility of Bruce — gets to the compound about ten minutes later. Together, she and Bucky move you into the spare room just down the corridor that is functioning as your birthing room, so that she can conduct her examination.

Bucky leaves you in her care so that he can dash into his bedroom to change into more appropriate attire. He shucks off his jeans and opts for some loose gym shorts in their place. Once he’s changed into a ratty old t-shirt and pulled his hair back into a quick, utilitarian bun, he hurries back to you.

Susie has just finished up her exam and is disposing of her gloves into the bin when Bucky goes inside. “You’re about 7 centimetres, Y/N,” she’s saying as he closes the door behind him. “You’re progressing at a fairly quick pace, and if things keep going as they are, I’m willing to bet that we’ll be meeting this baby in about two to three hours. Just in time for dinner!” she chuckles.

“Three hours?” you echo weakly, “I don’t think I can do three hours.”

“It might even be a little less,” Susie says, “You body — well, I’ve never delivered an enhanced individual like you, you see, and your body seems to be helping things along quite smoothly. For most births I’ve dealt with, the active labour stage is usually around eight hours. The fact that your body’s already at seven after five is a really good sign.”

“I still don’t think I can do three hours,” you mutter.

“Sure you can, doll,” Bucky says, striding across the room and sitting down beside you. There’s an armchair in the corner and you’re kneeling in front of it, chin resting atop your crossed wrists. Bucky smoothes a hand down your back as you sigh heavily, “I’m gonna be there with you every step of the way,” he tells you.

You flash him a grateful smile, extricating one of your hands from underneath you so that you can grab hold of his hand and lace your fingers together.

“James? I’m gonna step outside to call Johanna and tell her to come over,” Susie says.

“Sure thing,” Bucky murmurs distractedly, his attention mostly focused on you. He hears the soft click of the door shutting behind them.

“Can you put on some music?” you ask.

Bucky nods, standing up to turn on the speaker system. This room had originally been a spare bedroom, but once you’d decided on a home birth, Tony had had the place kitted out accordingly. It’s been painted a calming shade of blue, and the original wooden floor has been replaced with the sheet-tile flooring that you’d typically find in a hospital. There is a nurse’s station set up along the left wall, complete with a selection of medical equipment that has been brought down from the med bay. Besides the armchair that you’re currently leaning against, there’s a simple wooden table along the right wall that currently holds several bottles of water, a whole lot of towels, a bucket of ice cubes and some snacks.

The centrepiece of the entire room, however, is the enormous birthing pool that takes up most of the space. The pool is navy blue in colour, at least three metres in diameter and about half a metre in depth. It’s been filled three-quarters of the way with warm water.

Once Susie re-enters the room, you decide that you want to get inside it. Bucky helps you peel off your shorts and shirt; you’ve got a simple black bikini top on to preserve some of your modesty. Bucky holds onto your elbows as you lower yourself into the pool. You moan happily as the warm water soothes the aches and pains in your muscles.

After some shifting around, you position yourself so that your chin is resting on the edge of the pool. Bucky shuffles in closer and pushes strands of damp hair out of your face. You hum quietly, your eyes slipping shut at his touch. Bucky’s fingers linger on your cheek, his thumb idly brushing over your cheekbone.

“You okay?” he asks softly.

“Mm. Feels nice,” you reply, your voice a little slurred. A crease developed between your brow and you catch your bottom lip between your teeth.

“Contraction,” you grit out. Your fingers curl around Bucky’s metal forearm, your grip tight enough to make the plates whirr and click in protest. Bucky uses his free hand to scoop warm water over the back of your neck, smoothing his fingers over your skin.

“Wish I could take the pain away from you,” Bucky admits, once the contraction has passed and you’ve slumped against the side of the pool again. “I feel so bad — seeing you getting ripped apart from the inside out and all I can do is—is  _watch_ ,” he growls frustratedly.

You make a noise of protest in the back of your throat. “You’re doing so much for me,” you say sincerely. “Wouldn’t want anyone else in here with me. You’re doin’ the greatest.”

Bucky chuckles fondly and presses yet another kiss to your forehead.

Things progress rather quickly after that.

The contractions seem to go from passably bearable to sheer  _torture_ in the space of four minutes. One moment you’re all contented smiles and excited laughter, and the next moment, you’re screaming your head off, a string of colourful swear words leaving your mouth as you clutch Bucky’s metal arm in a death grip.

You’re almost delirious with the pain, by this point. Bucky remains a patient and supportive rock for you through it all, giving you sips of water, feeding you ice cubes, pressing cool towels to your forehead and the back of your neck. He presses kisses to your nose, your temples, your cheeks — even your lips, when you’re not in the middle of a ear-splitting scream of agony. He’s in awe — and, if he’s honest with himself, feeling somewhat terrified — of what you’re going through, but he couldn’t be any prouder of you.

Susie checks you once more and happily informs you that you’re fully dilated. “When you feel the urge to push, go for it, okay?” she says, patting you on the shoulder as she kneels down next to the pool, so that she can monitor your progress down there. Out of the corner of his eye, Bucky sees Johanna fussing around at the nurse’s station, laying out the things she’ll need to perform some basic checks on the baby.

“Are you in a comfortable position? Is this how you’d like to deliver?” Susie asks, as she snaps on a pair of blue latex gloves.

You nod your head weakly, before letting your chin flop back down onto the edge of the pool. You’re kneeling in the water with your upper arms resting on the side of the pool and your hands locked around Bucky’s metal arm. He’s sitting cross-legged in front of you, your faces just inches away from each other. To his left is a bottle of water with a pink straw sticking out of it, a bowl of ice, and a couple of towels.

The exhaustion is beginning to take its toll on you, he can see that in the expression on your face and the slump of your shoulders; the stress, pain and accumulated fatigue of the entire day is finally catching up to you.

“I got you, sweetheart,” Bucky whispers, stroking his thumb over your knuckles. “You’re doin’ so good, you’re gettin’ so close.” He presses a kiss to your forehead and holds that position as another contraction ripples down your body, letting you take comfort in his presence. This contraction is powerful enough to make you tremble against him. Bucky watches as you spread your knees wider and grit your teeth as you bear down, exhaling harshly as you push. A string of obscenities leaves your mouth.

“…Fuck,” you say, almost like an afterthought, once the contraction passes. Bucky chuckles and leans back, taking both your hands in his. The music continues to play in the background, a gentle piano number that provides a much-needed undertone of peace to the whole situation. Another contraction grips hold of you not long after that, making you cry out in pain. Stress is radiating out of your every pore, and Bucky can only watch on helplessly.

“Baby’s crowning now, Y/N, I can see it,” Susie announces, as you try to catch your breath between the waves of pain. You lift your chin up and flash Bucky the smallest, yet most genuine, of smiles. “Once you’ve pushed the head out, the rest will be easy as pie,” she says.

“Easy?” you croak disbelievingly. You open your mouth so say more but the words die on your lips as you suddenly grimace and tighten your grip on Bucky’s hands. Small sounds of distress escape from your throat. The veins on the side of your neck are so prominent, it’s as if they’re trying to burst out of your skin. Your eyes fly open just as a rough, sharp cry of pain is punched out of your lungs.

“There’s the head,” Susie murmurs, “Almost there now, just two or three more pushes.”

“Almost there, sweetheart,” Bucky echoes, squeezing your hands encouragingly, “Then we finally get to meet the little one.”

The next push is accompanied by another blood-curdling shriek. Your body curls forward, far enough that your forehead is pressing into Bucky’s shoulder.

“Oh my  _god_!” you wail,“Get it out, get it out, getitout, fucking  _hell—out_ , now, now, now—,”

“You’re doing it, Y/N,” Susie says, nonplussed and utterly calm despite your screams. “Just gimme one more like that one, okay?”

You let out a sound that is a cross between a scream, a grunt and a sob, bearing down so hard that Bucky swears that he can see the steam coming out of your ears. Your entire body is trembling, shaking so hard that even Bucky can feel it in his bones. The moment drags on, and on, and on; it feels like this baby’s never gonna come out, until—

“And, there we go,” Susie coos, lifting a tiny, bloody, flailing body out of the water.

It’s done.

Over.

Just like that.

Despite your exhausted state, you mange to turn around, holding your arms out eagerly.“It’s a girl,” Susie informs you, as she hands the baby over.

“A girl?” Bucky repeats, in an elated voice. He scrambles onto his knees and tucks his chin over your left shoulder so he can get a good look.

“H-hey, Stephanie,” you sniffle, tucking her close to your skin as you press a kiss to the top of her head. “Hey there, Steph—baby girl, it’s so nice to meet you.”

There are tears in Bucky’s eyes as reaches out with his flesh hand and strokes his fingers over Stephanie’s —  _Stephanie’s_ , god, he has a daughter now, what the fuck? — cheek. Bucky turns his head to press a kiss to your jaw. “M’so proud of you,” he whispers fiercely, ignoring the tears that are rolling down his face. “Y/N, sweetheart, I’m so proud of you, you  _did it_ , you gorgeous girl. My little trooper. M’so proud of you.”

You sniffle and laugh wetly, leaning your head against Bucky’s. He scoots forward just as you’re turning your head and suddenly, his lips are pressing hard against yours and Bucky genuinely thinks that he’s never going to be happier than he is right now.

The two of you break apart when Stephanie squeaks indignantly. Bucky pulls back as you rock her in your arms. He takes a good look at her and—

—notices her pale blonde hair. When Stephanie lets out another cry, she also opens her eyes, and there’s no mistaking the stunning blue-ness of those pupils.

That answers the question, then.

As if reading his mind, you turn to Bucky and press your forehead to the side of his neck. “I—I’m sorry that—she’s not yours,” you say, your voice thick with tears and cracking on the last word.

“What?” Bucky says, pulling back and cupping your face in his hands. “Y/N—no! I—I don’t care about that, she’s still  _mine_ , okay? Maybe I didn’t help to make her, but I’ve loved her all this time and that’s not gonna change, you hear me?” he leans forward and presses a kiss to your nose, “I swear on Steve’s life, Y/N, I’m gonna look after the both of you as best as I can. I promise.”

A wet, teary laugh bubbles out of your throat at the absurdity of the situation, the surreality of it all. “I love you,” you croak.

Bucky swallows around the lump in his throat. “I love you too,” he says.

This is fitting, Bucky thinks, as he rests his head against yours and gazes adoringly at his daughter. The legacy of Captain America is encapsulated in a statue in Central Park and a memorial exhibition at the Smithsonian. The legacy of Steve Rogers is encapsulated in this little bundle of joy, who Bucky already knows he’s willing to die for.

 _I hope you’re seeing this, Stevie,_  he thinks giddily,  _and I also hope that she hasn’t inherited your stubbornness. Lord knows I can’t deal with that again._

Susie, who, up until this point has been patiently letting you two have your moment, now clears her throat to get your attention. “James, would you like to cut her cord?”

“Of course,” he says, accepting the scissors she’s holding out with his metal hand, keeping the flesh one slung over your shoulders. “Wouldn’t dream of missing it.”

Once the cord is cut, Johanna takes the baby from your arms to do some measurements, giving you some space to birth the placenta.  _That_ is a far less traumatic ordeal than birthing the actual baby, so you give Bucky the green light to stand up and stretch out the cramps in his leg.

“You wanna hold her?” Johanna asks, as she finishes swaddling Stephanie —  _Stephanie_ , god, he’s not gonna get over that for a while — in a soft blanket. “I’m done with the measurements.”

Bucky swallows nervously. “Uh—yeah,” he replies, holding his hands out. “Give her to me.”

And that’s how Bucky ends up sitting in the armchair in the corner of room, cradling his newborn baby girl to his chest at half past eight in the evening on January the 13th. He’s got tears in his eyes, a heart full of dizzying joy and the biggest smile on his lips. When he looks down at Stephanie, sees how content she is as she listens to the steady beat of his heart, he thinks that things might work out, after all.

“We’re gonna be just fine, baby,” Bucky coos, stroking the tip of his finger down her nose. “Steph, my precious darling — we’re gonna be great.”

——————————

As he expected, Bucky finds the rest of the team lounging around in the common room, chattering idly amongst themselves. Everyone drops what they’re doing when they see Bucky strolling in. An expectant hush falls over the room.

“Well?” asks Wanda, breaking the spell.

“Birth went smoothly,” Bucky announces, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall. “And it’s a girl.”

Elated cheers and raucous applause fills the room. Everyone rushes to congratulate him, shaking his hand, clapping him on the shoulder or pulling him into a hug to celebrate. Bucky allows himself to be swept along in the current of happiness that seems to have possessed everyone. His cheeks hurt from all the smiling that he’s doing.

Bucky can’t remember the last time he was this happy. Not for a few decades, he reckons.

“I fucking  _told_ you it was a girl,” Sam crows triumphantly, pumping his fist in the air. Tony grumbles discontentedly under his breath as he fishes out his wallet from his back pocket and forks over twenty bucks. Bucky chuckles in amusement.

“Since it’s a girl, I assume you named her after me, right?” Natasha says, a playful gleam in her eye.

Someone snorts behind him and Bucky turns to see you coming down the corridor, a burrito-shaped bundle in your arms. You’ve put on a pair of loose black sweats and a simple tank top. Johanna has her arm around your waist, letting you lean on her as you walk.

As if by magic, the crowd of people around Bucky parts for you, giving you a clear path to the couch. Everyone cranes their neck to try and get a good look at the baby, but no one tries to crowd into your space. You gingerly sit down, shifting Steph so that she’s held more securely in your arms. Johanna steps back and gives Bucky a knowing wink as she heads back into the birthing room to clear up her stuff. Bucky strides over to the couch, leaning his forearms against the back of it and beaming down at Steph from over your shoulder.

You look up and smile benevolently at the rest of the team. “Everyone, meet Stephanie. Stephanie, meet the rest of your crazy family.”

Sam is the first to come forward. He’s got tears in his eyes, but his hands are steady when he holds them out. “Can I hold her?” he asks.

“Of course,” you reply.

Bucky feels like the proudest dad in the entire world as he watches his daughter get doted upon by a gaggle of ex-assassins and enhanced individuals. Everyone coos and awws at Steph, stroking their fingers over her soft hair or down her cheek. He can tell that this she’s going to have every single person in this room wrapped around her little finger before she’s turned two months old.  

“Stephanie’s a beautiful name,” Pepper comments.

“It is,” you agree, leaning your head against Bucky’s shoulder and reaching up to interlace your fingers with his. “Stephanie Ann Barnes.”

Bucky’s heart skips a beat.

“Barnes?” he echoes.

You turn to face him, the barest hint of a smile on your lips. “Barnes,” you repeat, “I want her to have your last name.”

“Y/N—are you sure?” Bucky asks, his voice suddenly hoarse and raspy.

In answer, you lean forward to press a firm, confident kiss to his lips. “I’m sure,” you say simply.

“Have I ever told you that I love you?” Bucky whispers, feeling the hot prick of tears against the back of his eyelids.

You chuckle, turning around properly to cup his jaw, and press another, tender kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Maybe once or twice,” you reply, the happiness evident in your tone.

——————————

The two of you only manage to make it back to your room at around 10PM. There had been a relaxing dinner and a large discussion over who would get to be the godparents, with valid and not-so valid points being put forth by everyone.

It’s a discussion that has been put off for another day.

Bucky has to practically carry you to your room, because you’re dead on your feet. He sets you down on the bed and helps you to lean against the headboard, arranging pillows around you to help prop you up. Once you’re comfortable, you pull up your top and unclip your bra, murmuring to Steph under your breath as she latches onto your nipple. There’s a soft smile on Bucky’s lips as he watches you interact with her. Motherhood suits you, he decides.

A sharp rap on the door shatters the tranquility of the moment. With a frown, Bucky crosses the room and answers it, taking care to angle his body so that whoever it is won’t be able to see you in your current state of undress.

Wanda is standing in the hallway. “Here,” she says, handing him the coat he’d discarded earlier that afternoon, as well as a bottle of water and a packet of dried mangoes. “In case Y/N gets hungry in the middle of the night,” she explains.

“Thanks, Wanda,” Bucky says, taken aback by how thoughtful the gesture is. “Have a good night.”

She smiles. “You too,” she says softly.

Bucky kicks the door shut, then drops the items onto the bed by your feet. He stretches his arms over his head as he walks over to your dresser and pulls open the second drawer. Bucky roots around in it, searching for the pair of sweats he knows he’s stashed in there.

“Uh, Bucky?” you ask.

“Hmm?”

“What’s this?”

Bucky turns around to look at you. “What’s wha—oh,” he croaks, noticing the silver ring you’re holding in your thumb and forefinger.

“The pouch fell out of your pocket,” you say sheepishly. “I picked it up—and felt this inside and…well.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. He crosses the room and sinks down on the edge of the bed, thighs spread and elbows perched on his knees. A dry laugh rattles out of him as he runs his fingers through his hair. “This is…not how I pictured things going.”

“Are you—do you—,” you cut yourself off, chewing on your bottom lip restlessly. “You wanna marry me?”

“If you’ll have me, yeah,” Bucky admits, turning to look at you.

Your gaze softens, your eyes going misty. “Of course I do. C’mere,” you say, patting the space next to you. Bucky gets onto the bed properly and knee-walks to your left side — because Steph is nursing on your right breast — and presses himself against you so that your sides are flush against each other.

“Of course I want that, Bucky,” you say gently, taking his hand and lacing your fingers together. “I know you’re it for me, darling, and today just confirmed everything I feel about you.”

Bucky makes a low noise in the back of his throat, as he turns his head to press a kiss to your temple. “I love you so much more than I ever thought I could,” he confesses, lips brushing against your hair.

“Same here,” you chuckle. A pause, then, “But…I know I definitely want… _that_  with you, someday, but…I want to enjoy being a mother for a while,” you say gently, “I…I can only take so much excitement in life. I rushed into things with Steve and — whilst I don’t necessarily  _regret_ it, I do wish I’d done things differently.”

You turn your head so that your forehead is pressing against his. “I love you, and I wanna take things slow, do it right, this time,” you say vehemently.

Bucky’s hand comes up to cup the back of your head, his thumb stroking idly over your jaw. “I like that plan,” Bucky says, “I wasn’t gonna propose today, or anytime soon, actually. I — yeah. I wanna do this the right way and enjoy being a daddy for a while.”

“You’ve always been a daddy,” you tease, bopping his nose with yours.

“You know what I mean,” he huffs. You hum in agreement.

Bucky pulls away to readjust himself, slinging his arm over your shoulders as he leans in close to rest his cheek to the top of your head. His gaze is transfixed by his beautiful daughter, who is suckling contentedly at your breast. You sigh happily as you press into him, curling your body so that it better fits against his own. Bucky wishes he could freeze time, because this moment is everything he’s ever wanted for himself. Though he reeks of stale coffee and sweat, is in dire need of a good night’s sleep and feels as if his bladder is about to burst, Bucky knows without a shadow of doubt that there’s no other place he’d rather be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Share this baby on [tumblr!](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/169661075830/a-messed-up-place-fifteen/)


	17. EPILOGUE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wedding and a surprise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **“Professional” Notes:** The last ever AMUP update is being posted on Bucky’s birthday — I feel like that’s appropriate, somehow. Also, this was supposed to be a short and sweet epilogue but whOOPS 4k words happened somehow. Self-discipline? Don’t know what that is, never heard of it. #noregrets
> 
> **“Emotional” Notes:** I’m sobbing, I’m screaming, I’m hysterical, I’m not ready for this gAAHHHH!!!!
> 
> I’m feeling like a bundle of raw emotions rn. A Messed Up Place has been a labour of love ever since October 12th, 2017, my 19th birthday and the day I posted the AMUP Prologue. Now, nearly 5 months later, it’s coming to its official end. Thank you to everyone who’s stuck with me throughout this journey — your reblogs, comments and reactions have truly meant the world to me. To share this story with you, to see all the love that has come out of it, to have had this story bring me closer to some of my faves…there are no words to describe how I’m feeling. Honestly. Thank you so much, all of you.
> 
> Also, I’m sorry I broke your hearts and made you cry — I hope it was worth it all in the end.

“My point is, I’ve known Tony for a long time,” says Rhodey. He pauses and cocks his head to the side, before barking out a short, dry laugh. “Actually, now that I think about it, it hasn’t been  _that_ long year-wise, but  _man_ , with the amount of sh—I mean… _stuff_  he’s gotten himself into, it sure does feel a lot longer.”

As Rhodey takes a sip of his champagne, he catches Bucky’s gaze out of the corner of his eye and  gives an almost imperceptible quirk of his eyebrows. Bucky flashes him an easy smile and gives him a subtle thumbs-up, showing his thanks for the quick save.

Steph’s at the age where she just  _adores_ repeating basically every word that she hears. The last thing Bucky needs is for the word ‘shit’ to be added to her repertoire of favourites, alongside ‘laun-de-reee’, ‘no’ and ‘cat dick’.

Though, with a room full of adults in various stages of tipsiness, not adding a swear word to Steph’s vocabulary is proving easier said than done. There have been a few too many close-calls tonight.  _Why_  did Bucky ever think that letting Steph stay for the reception was a good idea? Her sleep schedule’s going to be fucked up for the next  _week_.

Bucky pauses, registering his train of thought. God, he’s such a  _dad_.

“I remember when Tony was an insufferable know-it-all,” Rhodey continues, his voice drawing Bucky back to the present. “Oh wait — he still  _is_ an insufferable know-it-all.”

That pulls a chuckle out of Bucky and causes a titter of laughter to ripple through the room. Tony gives his best man an affronted look.

“Yeah, but I guess back in the day, he was a hundred times worse,” Rhodey amends, once the audience has settled again. “I mean, c’mon! He was schooling all of his professors in MIT! Gave a lecture of his own, at one point — after hijacking the lectern in true Tony fashion, of course.”

“I’ve watched him as he lived the life of a CEO playboy. I’ve seen him learn what responsibility is. I’ve seen him at the lowest of his low points and the peak of his high points. And I thought I’d seen all the parts of him there ever was to see — until he met you, Pepper.”

The customary wave of ‘aww’s’ sweep through the room. Bucky watches as Pepper — in an uncustomary public display of affection — scoots her chair closer to Tony’s and rests her cheek on his shoulder. Pepper’s strawberry blonde hair has started to fall out of her bun, curled tendrils hanging loosely around her face. Her cheeks have a rosy glow to them that match the happy glimmer in her eyes. She looks relaxed and in love and more at peace than she’s ever been — just like her new husband.

“You bring out a whole different side of him, Pep,” Rhodey says, the fondness evident in his tone. “He’ll deny this to his grave, I know, but you make him soft at heart. You’re good for him and hopefully — he’ll be good to you. May the both of you live a long life, have a healthy marriage and please, for the love of god, don’t let any of your kids get their hands on Tony’s suits. To the both of you,” he declares, raising his champagne flute with a grin on his face. Amidst waves of laughter, Bucky catches the toast being echoed by the rest of the wedding guests.

Bucky pushes off from the wall he’s been leaning on and walks back to the centre of the dance floor. He takes the mic off Rhodey as their paths cross, murmuring a quiet ‘well done’ as they brush shoulders. That’s the last speech of what has been an eventful night, filled with tears (of the happy sort), lots of laughter and two separate occasions of Tony nearly setting Pepper’s dress on fire.

But besides those instances of near-catastrophe, the whole affair has been rather low-key and chilled. It’s clear that Pepper’s done most of the wedding planning. The entire event is being held in the back gardens of the compound. An enormous marquee has been set up, with fairy lights, lanterns and all manner of flowers strung from the ceiling. There’s a dance floor on one end and tables taking up the rest of the space. Everything is pastel coloured and tastefully decorated.

It’s nice. Really nice.

“So, that marks the end of all the speeches we have lined up for tonight,” Bucky says, addressing the assembled crowd. He’s the MC of the reception, tasked with the trying job of facilitating seamless transitions between the nights’ entertainment.

Bucky’s really glad that his work is almost done.

“I’d just like to say a quick thank you, on behalf of our newly married couple, to everyone that’s made this event what it was. And to Tony and Pepper — I’m sure you’re sick of hearing this, by this point, but congratulations,” Bucky says sincerely, flashing the two of them a warm smile. Pepper returns the gesture and Tony nods his head in acknowledgement.

Just then, Bucky hears the  _tap-tap-tap_ of patent-leather shoes darting across the floor. He beams when he catches sight of his daughter rushing towards him at full speed, arms outstretched, fine blonde hair bouncing on her shoulders and chocolate cake smeared on her chin.

_Typical,_ he sighs internally. Well, at least there’s no chocolate on her white dress.

As Stephanie runs to his side, Bucky crouches down to welcome her with open arms. He hoists her up in one smooth motion, perching her on his waist. She enthusiastically wraps her arms around his neck and flashes him a toothy grin.

“Hello gorgeous,” Bucky murmurs, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead. Bucky spots you sitting beside Pepper and arches an eyebrow in your direction, before looking pointedly at Steph; a silent  _what’s she up to?_

You shrug exaggeratedly, hands raised and palms facing outward.  _How the hell do I know?_

“Daddy,” Steph whines, patting Bucky on the cheek to get his attention, “Wanna go dancing again.”

Bucky’s heart might just have melted a little. He ducks his head closer, “Almost done here, gorgeous, then we can go dancing again, okay?” he whispers, lips brushing the shell of Steph’s ear with each word. He smiles when she giggles and pushes his face away with her pudgy hands; his baby’s always had ticklish ears.

Steph leans back and puts her palm on his cheek, schooling her features into a more solemn expression. “Daddy, I haff something ‘portant to tell you,” she says seriously.

“Oh?” Bucky asks, arching an eyebrow in amusement. “Okay, but is there something you want to say to Tony and Pepper first, gorgeous?”

Stephanie seems to think about it for a minute, brows drawing together and lips pursing as if she’s sucked on a lemon. When it clicks, she claps her hands excitedly as an exuberant grin spreads across her face.

“Yeah!” she cries, making grabby hands for the mic, “I gotta say something!”

Bucky chuckles, holding the mic closer to her mouth. “Go ahead, sweetheart,” he says.

Steph twists around so that she’s beaming brightly at the crowd of expectant faces. As the one and only flower girl in attendance, over the course of the night, Steph seems to have won over the hearts of everyone present.

Who can blame them, really?

Bucky catches sight of you, sitting in between Wanda and Pepper, watching your daughter with a bemused smile on your face. You’ve got your chin propped up on one hand, a glass of water poised at your lips. You meet Bucky’s gaze and flash him a cheeky wink, just as you take a sip.

“Ev’body? I’m gonna be a biiiiiig sistah!” Steph announces proudly.

_What?_

It’s lucky that Bucky’s eyes are trained on you, because your reaction to Steph’s revelation is  _priceless_. You choke on your mouthful of water and burst into a coughing fit. Wanda turns towards you to thump your back, whilst simultaneously shooting Bucky an  _is this for real?_  expression. Pepper and Tony have bolted upright, their haze of marital bliss disrupted by the commotion. Natasha and Sam look like they’ve gone into shock, and everyone else’s gaze is focused on Stephanie, who is seemingly unaware of what she’s just done.

A stunned hush descends over the room.

“Uhm,” Bucky mutters weakly. He clears his throat and shifts Stephanie on his hip. “Uhh—gorgeous…I think you had something  _else_ you wanted to say to Tony and Pepper, right?” he asks. “Remember? You were practicing it this morning?”

Stephanie cocks her head to the side and narrows her eyes. “Oh! Oh, con…gra…chu…lay…shuns?” she says slowly, carefully enunciating each syllable.

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees, his voice strained. “Yeah, um…why don’t you go sit back down with Aunty Nat, gorgeous, and let Daddy finish this off?” he suggests. Steph nods agreeably. Bucky sets her down and watches as she toddles off towards the head table, where Natasha is holding a hand out for her. Bucky runs his metal hand through his hair and takes a shaky breath.

“Okay, well…um,” he starts, “I—guess there’s not much more for me to say. Congratulations, Tony and Pepper. May you have a good marriage and all that.”

He’s pretty sure his words fall on deaf ears. As Bucky hands the mic back to the DJ hovering at the back of the dance floor, he spies you hurriedly weaving through the tables and slipping out of the marquee via one of the side flaps. Sam shoots Bucky a pointed look and jerks his head in your direction; a clear  _go after her, dude_. Steph seems to be well-occupied by Natasha for the moment, and so, silently praying that his daughter isn’t going to start spouting out more secrets, Bucky quickly dashes after you.

When he steps outside, Bucky discovers that the twilight hour has come and gone. As his eyes adjust to the darkness, Bucky spins around in a circle, trying to find you. He spots you sitting on the concrete steps leading into the main building, your elbows on your knees, hands clasped in front of you and forehead pressed against your wrists. He sighs, slowly walking towards you, loosening his tie and undoing the top button of his crisp white shirt as he goes. Bucky plops himself down a couple of steps below you, body angled in your direction.

“She’s only three,” you say weakly, not bothering to lift your head up to acknowledge him. “What did I expect?  _Ugh_ , our daughter is terrible at keeping secrets.”

Bucky’s heart does an excited little flutter. “So she was serious?” he croaks out.

You drop your hands. Your mascara’s smudged underneath your eyes and most of your lipstick has rubbed off, this late in the day. But, you’ve still got a smile on your face and to Bucky, you look as beautiful as ever.

“I found out a few days ago,” you admit quietly, “Realised that my period was late and took a test.” You laugh softly, “Got the shock of my life when I saw it was positive.”

Bucky inhales sharply.

“I thought it’d be a nice to have Steph tell you the news,” you continue, eyes flicking up briefly to meet his. “I’ve been practicing it with her and—,” you break off with a groan, burying your face in your hands. “ _Fuck_ , why did I ever think that was a good idea? Now  _everyone_  knows that I’m pregnant and I wanted to tell you first in private before—and, and  _now_ —,”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Bucky interjects, pushing himself onto his knees and catching your wrists in his hands. He pulls them to his chest, ignoring your weak protests, leaving you unable to hide your face from him. When you tilt your chin upwards, Bucky sees the glimmer of unshed tears in your eyes. The watery smile on your lips tells him that they’re not tears of sadness, though. In this moment, Bucky feels like there’s a gurgling pressure behind his sternum, a bubbling spring of emotions itching to spew free.

“For real, princess?” he asks quietly, barely able to contain himself.

You laugh breathlessly, the corners of your eyes crinkling with joy. “Yeah, honey.  _Really_.”

Bucky swallows, then leans in close until his forehead is resting against yours, until his nose brushes your cheek and your breath ghosts over his face. You slip a hand out of his grip and curl it around the back of his neck, fingers combing through his ponytail.

“Tell me again, sweetheart,” Bucky says, voice hoarse, thick with tears. With your palm pressed to his chest, he has no doubt that you can feel the mad thumping of his heart. “I need to hear  _you_ say it.”

Your hand on the back of his neck tightens its grip. “I’m pregnant,” you whisper.

Bucky lets out a half-sob, body surging forward to crash his lips against yours. Inside his chest, he feels the dam burst, allowing a tsunami wave of emotions to course through his system. The kiss is heated and sweet and meaningful, all that same time. His brain is spinning, his body is floating, his heart is soaring, his soul is singing. He’s overcome with  _feelings_  and he just—he  _can’t_ put any of them into words.

“Sweetheart,” he says breathlessly, brokenly. It’s the only word his brain can think of right now. Fuck—he has so many things to tell you.  _I can’t believe it,_ he wants to say. _I’m terrified_ , maybe. _I’m so fucking happy. I love you so much_. “I—oh my god—,”

“I know,” you say fervently, meeting his lips for another urgent kiss, “I know.”

And perhaps, he just doesn’t need to say anything. Maybe you’ve heard all those unsaid words anyway. Maybe, after all this time, you just  _know_.

“Again,” Bucky demands, one hand cupping the back of your head, the other arm encircling your waist. He darts in for another kiss —  _fuck_  he never wants to stop kissing you,  _ever_  — as he leans forward, forcing you to brace your elbows against the step above the one you’re sitting on. “Tell me again,” he begs, gently nipping your bottom lip as he pulls back to look at you.

He takes in your kiss-bitten lips, your darkened eyes and your messy hair. You curl your fingers into the lapels of his jacket, just as your lips curl into a private smile, for his eyes only. “I’m pregnant,” you repeat, your voice quiet, sincere.

Bucky drops down again, brushing his lips against yours. “I love you so much,” he says, in between kisses, “So fucking much, you know that?”.

“Love you too,” you reply, throwing your arms over his shoulders to hold him close.

Where words fail, actions speak.

Bucky pours every ounce of love surging through his body into every press of his lips, desperately hoping that each kiss is enough to telegraph the extent of his emotions. Words are not enough, actions are not enough — he  _wants_ you to know how he’s feeling so  _bad_. His world is shaken by this news — for better, for worse, who knows?

The only certainty he’s holding onto right now is  _you_.

Bucky blankets your body with his, moulding his body to yours and wishing he could do the same to your souls. He kisses you and tastes the salt of your tears, the mint on your tongue. He feels the hammering of your heart, hears your barely-audible sighs and greedily drinks in the exultant joy radiating out of every fibre of your being.

“Sweetheart,” Bucky breathes, cradling the back of your neck with his flesh hand and pulling your mouth closer, kissing your lips like you’re the oxygen that Bucky has been starving for. And maybe that  _is_ what you are, Bucky thinks desperately, a fleeting thought in his dizzy mind. Maybe you’ve been his oxygen all this while. Because it’d certainly felt like an agonisingly slow death, enduring all those months without you.

The two of you lose time like that, sprawled out on the steps, tangled in each others arms, rucking up your fancy clothes. You trade kisses and soft touches, murmured promises and meaningful stares. There’s a simmering heat in his belly that Bucky  _could_  turn into something more if he stoked the fire and gave it some attention, but for now — this is enough.

From somewhere on his left, someone clears their throat obnoxiously.

Bucky startles, quickly rolling off you as he reaches for the knife strapped to his left calf. When he sees who it is, he allows his posture to relax, although a hot rush of embarrassment  _does_ race through his veins.

“If we’d walked out a second later, I’m fairly certain we’d’ve stumbled across you two defiling our porch steps,” Tony remarks dryly.

Pepper gently elbows him in the side. “Tony!” she chastises, “Be nice.”

“Sorry, darling,” Tony says quickly. Bucky doesn’t miss the dopey look he shoots in her direction.

Seriously. Were you and Bucky ever this bad?

Bucky glances down at the gold ring welded onto his metal ring finger, casts his mind back to a warm summer’s day on the beach, sun on his face, sand between his toes, his arms around your waist and thinks no — the two of you were  _worse_.

“Anyway,” Tony drawls, “I must say, your daughter sure does have a knack for dramatic timing.”

“He did learn from the best,” Pepper comments sarcastically, giving him the side-eye. Tony squawks in protest.

“Tony—Pepper, I’m so,  _so_  sorry,” you say quickly, sitting up and brushing you skirt back into place. “I—I really didn’t mean to steal your thunder, or anything like that, I  _swear_ , it was—,”

Pepper holds a hand up to silence you, a benevolent smile on her lips. “No harm done, Y/N,” she says reassuringly, “Really, we mean it. Yes, it was quite the shock, but—that just makes the night more memorable, no? We’re not mad,  _honestly_.”

Tony snorts. “Speak for yourself,” he grumbles. “Sorry,  _sorry_ ,” he adds hastily, when Pepper narrows her eyes into a murderous glare. Turning his focus back to the two of you, he clears his throat and says, “Congratulations, and all that good stuff, I suppose.”

Pepper rolls her eyes. “Yes, congratulations, you two,” she says emphatically. “And technically, it  _is_  past midnight, so you didn’t  _really_  steal our thunder.”

You make a sound that is a cross between a laugh and a groan. “I’m never going to forgive her for this,” you mutter darkly, “There goes her Stark tablet privileges for the week!”

“You say that, but you know she’ll just do something to make you forgive her in the next day,” Bucky points out. “Kid’s got us wrapped around her finger.”

With a resigned, full-bodied sigh, you slump against Bucky’s side. “It’s the thought that counts,” you say morosely.

“Well, I think we’ll leave you two to rejoice in peace,” Tony says decisively, pivoting on his heel and striding back to the party. “Just don’t traumatise any of our guests when they come out here!” he calls over his shoulder.

“ _Tony_ ,” Pepper says, in a voice that is both fond and exasperated. To the two of you, she adds, “Seriously, no offence taken. I’ll make sure that Nat’s keeping an eye on Stephanie.”

“Thank you, Pepper,” Bucky says, as Pepper glides off towards her husband, her periwinkle blue wedding dress swishing with each step.

The two of you sit in silence, watching as Tony and Pepper slip back into the marquee, hand-in-hand. When the coast is clear, you peel yourself away from Bucky’s side and climb into his lap. Bucky chuckles in surprise, but plants his feet flat on the step below, allowing you to straddle his thighs.

You pay no attention to the fact that your skirt has bunched up in your lap, nor to the fact that someone from the reception could stumble out and see you two at any second. Bucky rests his hands on your waist and tips his head back to look at you, awestruck by the reality of the situation and the enormity of this new adventure.

“How the hell are we gonna manage with two little ones?” he asks quietly, thumbs rubbing gentle circles into your hipbones. “We can barely get by with just Steph!”

You throw your head back and laugh, drawing Bucky’s attention to the elegant column of your neck. Compelled, he leans forward and presses a kiss to the hollow of your throat, letting his lips linger for a while. You hum softly, looping your arms over his shoulders and scooting forward a little, so that your chest is pressed against his.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” you murmur, “Things always seem to have a way of working out.”

When your lips finally meet, the kiss is tender — languid and lazy, like a sluggish breeze on a sweltering hot day. Bucky’s arms tighten around you, the fingers of his flesh hand tangling in your hair, his metal hand tracing patterns across the skin of your bare back. He swipes his tongue across your bottom lip and swallows your breathy sigh. You mouth opens so easily for him and before long, he finds you rolling your hips against his in slow, sinuous motions.

Bucky’s mouths a trail of wet kisses across your jaw and down your neck, coming to a stop above your pulse point. He feels your thrumming heartbeat against his lips, seemingly beating in time with his own heart.

“D’you think it’s okay if we ask Nat and Sam to take Steph for the night?” he asks, only half-joking, “Y’know. For celebration purposes.”

He feels the rumble of your laughter vibrate through his chest. “ _Bucky_ ,” you giggle.

“What?”

“No,” you say. Bucky’s fairly certain he  _heard_  your eyes rolling, that time.

“Aw—c’mon, honey—,”

“No,” you repeat firmly. Before he can protest further, you cup Bucky’s jaw in your hands, tilting his head back until he meets your eyes.

Your hair is disheveled, falling around your face in messy strands. There’s a gleaming brightness in your eyes that makes the marquee lights behind you seem pale in comparison. You brush your thumb across Bucky’s stubbled jaw, an absentminded smile playing on your lips. “Not tonight, at least,” you tell him.

Bucky swallows, reaches his flesh hand up to catch your wrist. He turns his face to the side and presses his lips to the heel of your palm, registers your sharp intake of breath. “I’m gonna hold you to that promise,” he murmurs.

You huff out a laugh and lean forward, nosing a path down his cheek. Bucky turns his head and finds your mouth again, pressing his lips against yours in slow, unhurried movements.

“Tell me again,” Bucky whispers, as his flesh hand comes to rest on top of your belly.

You rest your hands on top of his, before swallowing audibly. You hold his gaze, your eyes bright with sudden tears, a pure and hopeful smile on your lips.

“I’m pregnant, sweetheart. We’re gonna have another baby.”

Bucky thinks he’ll never be as happy as he is right now, sitting on some concrete steps with you in his arms, stealing kisses from your lips whilst the sounds of laughter and upbeat music float across the gardens.

Bucky’s glad he stands corrected a few months later, on Steph’s fourth birthday, when he sees the look of delight on his baby’s face as she sets eyes on her unicorn-themed birthday cake. They’re surrounded by their super-family, a collection of opened presents and shredded wrapping paper littering the floor of the common room. Stephanie manages to get pink frosting all over her face, making Bucky laugh until his cheeks are sore. You try to keep the smile from spreading across your face, but it’s a futile effort when you have a daughter as sweet as Steph.

You have a hand resting protectively on top of your burgeoning belly, and the sight only serves to make Bucky’s heart swell a little more.

Bucky’s glad he stands corrected a few months after that, as he cradles his son in his arms, gently rocking him back and forth as he makes his way over to your side of the bed. You take him from Bucky, cooing softly as you stroke your knuckle over his chubby cheeks. Steph, perched on your other side, peers at the baby curiously, as if trying to decide what to make of her little brother. Warily, tentatively, she brushes her index finger over his pudgy fist, gasping in surprise when he wraps his little fingers around it and holds on tight.

“I think I could love him,” she whispers.

Bucky’s glad he stands corrected a few years down the line, as the two of you bring in the last of the boxes and set them on the kitchen counter. The house is a mess, the kids are wreaking their usual havoc and the last thing he wants to do is walk up a flight of stairs to check on them. Both of you are gross and sweaty, but Bucky loops his arms around you and pulls you close nonetheless, planting an enthusiastic kiss on your lips. Moving in has been stressful and exciting, to say the least, but Bucky is eager to start writing this new chapter in your lives. He can’t wait to fill these walls with memories and make this house a place to call  _home_.

Unable to fight the grin spreading across his face, Bucky picks you up and swings you around in a circle. “Welcome home, sweetheart,” he breathes.

Bucky loses track of how many times he stands corrected, as the years go by. Day after day, he smiles until his cheeks hurt and laughs until his sides ache. The years are filled with birthdays and babies, missions and milestones, ups and downs. He watches his children go to school, grow up, get married, have lives — take on the world like they were made of gold dust and vibranium.

“What a life, huh sweetheart?” Bucky asks softly, as another chapter comes to its end.

Time has a funny way of slipping by in the blink of an eye, he’s noticed. Many things have changed over the years, but the one faithful, unshakeable constant he’s held onto is his love for you.

Bucky thinks of this as the two of you lie tangled up on the sofa, your body slotted between Bucky’s legs, your cheek pressed to his chest and his chin resting on top of your head.

“Yeah, honey. What a life,” you murmur, as you slip your fingers underneath the hem of his t-shirt, splaying them across the small of his back. “A crazy, wild, tumultuous,  _messy_  life.”

You pause to pull away from him, sitting up a little and craning your head back to look into his eyes. “But worth it all?” you ask.

Bucky grins, feels that joyous fluttering in his heart as he leans forward and presses a kiss to your lips. “Yeah, my gorgeous. It’s all been worth it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Share the love on the [tumbles](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/171720296875/a-messed-up-place-epilogue/)
> 
> Also: Am I bawling my eyes out now that my child is finished? You betcha :’)))

**Author's Note:**

> Share this work on [tumblr!](https://a-splash-of-stucky.tumblr.com/post/166316460040/a-messed-up-place-masterlist/)


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